


Miracle Child

by jacktheminatureslayer



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, One Direction (Band)
Genre: But He Gets Better, Halfblood!liam, Halfblood!niall, Harry doesn't understand why being a muggle-born is bad, Harry sort of hates Louis, I don't really know either, Liam is trying to pass his NEWTs without crying, M/M, Muggle-born!harry, Niall is trying not to fall off his broom, Pureblood!louis, Pureblood!zayn, Zayn doesn't understand why he likes Liam, and there's sex, because they're horny blokes with magic, because zayn will shut him up with his cock, frickity-fracking, heh, in his own way, it is liam, louis is completely infatuated by harry, perfect!niall, probably, something wicked this way comes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:06:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1513253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacktheminatureslayer/pseuds/jacktheminatureslayer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn is a pureblood that is haunted by purist values; Liam is a "know-it-all" half-blood that can't spell; Niall is going to be the "Best Quidditch Keeper" that Hogwarts has ever seen, even if he can't catch the quaffle to save his life; Harry is just trying to get out of there unnoticed; and Louis is tired of people comparing him to his father.</p><p>And it all starts in their third year when Louis claims that he will make Harry Styles fall in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. PROLOGUE: or the One Where Louis Almost Runs-Away to Befriend Squirrels

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Starting another WIP? Hell yeah, because I couldn't get this story out of my head. FYI, this story is based largely on a WIP started by the wonderful [soapman333](http://www.harrypotterfanfiction.com/viewuser.php?showuid=247763) (from the Harry Potter fandom). Who has given me permission to use it (yes, I did ask), since soapman has no plans to finish it ever (in fact, the story has been taken down from the site).
> 
> For more inquiries: Louis is based off of James Potter I, Harry is Lily Potter, Liam is Severus Snape (but not really, he turns more into a Remus/Hermione type of a charactisation), Zayn is Sirius Black, and Niall is Niall (the perfect character).
> 
> Also, SORRY I KNOW PROLOGUES SUCK (THIS ONE DOES TOO), BUT I WROTE IT SO I'M POSTING IT!

Today is the day.

His fingers are sweaty and cold.

His glasses are pinching his nose. He hates the red marks they leave on the bridge.

His stomach feels like it’s going to drop out of his body.

This is the best day ever already.

 

“Louis you’ve hardly touched your food,” Mum scolds him as she places Grandad’s tea in front of him. He’s thumbing through the newspaper and frowning at a certain section.

Louis pushes the plate away from him and reaches for a piece of toast. “I’m not all that hungry,” he tells her, piling jam on top of it.

“Would you like some bread with that jam?” Grandad teases over his paper.

Mum slaps his arm and grabs the untouched plate of pancakes and eggs. “The train ride up there is so long,” she frowns before adding, “you’ll starve before you’re even sorted.”

“Pack him something to eat. Oh, we could give him some money for the trolley. Remember the trolley, Jay?” he asks, folding up his newspaper and sipping his tea.

Mum rolls her eyes at him. “Of course I remember the trolley. Never anything substantial on it, though.”

“It’s a big day!” he responds, throwing his hands up in enthusiasm. “Let him eat thirty pumpkin pastries!”

“Grandad!” Louis says equalling his level of enthusiasm as Mum rolls her eyes and leaves the dining room. “Do they have a candy factory on the train?!”

He smiles fondly at him. “They have the best candy factory on the train, Lou,” he says with a wink.

Louis beams and shoves the toast in his mouth, thinking of all the delights that must wait for him on the train. His stomach stops its flipping and he momentarily forgets the pinching on the bridge of his nose. Suddenly, he’s extremely hungry and he fumbles to steal Grandad’s plate of food. Grandad whines his protest, but doesn’t move to stop him as he shoves the contents of his breakfast in his mouth. His food consists of dry, healthy things, because Mum always worries about what he eats. Something to do with collaterol? Collysputal? Something that old people get when they eat like kids.

“Oi! You’re not supposed to eat like that yet!” he says.

Mum comes in and looks on the scene in confusion. He looks up at her and points at where Louis is currently piling jam on his english muffin. “What’s he going to be like when he’s actually a teenager?” he demands. “I didn’t sign up for this!”

She laughs and walks over to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m just glad he’s eating. Give him some money for the trolley.”

He fumes before relenting and pulling out his money purse. “You’re lucky that you’re cute, Lou. I might be starved the next few years if this escalates,” he grumbles, handing some sparky coins to Mum to give to him.

When breakfast is finished (Grandad was more than satisfied with eating Louis’ untouched pancakes in compromise), they all head out to a rented cabbie. Mum and Grandad honestly look so silly in their muggle clothing. Grandad keeps pinching the fabric of his trousers and scratching the back of his neck. “How do muggles even breath in this thing?” he whispers to my mum. She slaps his arm.

They’ve been in Grandad’s house in London for the whole week in anticipation of this day. Grandmum is in Doncaster with Mark taking care of the girls while they had shopped in the sweet smelling shopping place, Diagon Alley.

Louis still remembers the day he got his acceptance letter to Hogwarts. The owl came in the morning around eight or nine and his mother and him talked about it nonstop until his grandparents came flooing in through the green flames of the fireplace. Grandad, upon reading the letter, made a great show of looking relieved and said comments along the lines of, “Oh good, I thought for certain that you were a squib.” Mother responded by hitting grandfather playfully and calming Louis down. “We knew you were going to be a wizard, Lou-bear. You’re a very powerful boy.” After assuring him that he was going to be a great wizard and there is no hint of squib in him, his mother proceeded to bake a pie while grandfather whispered, “She’s supposed to say that, she is your mother, after all.”

Mum had him when she was very young with “an auror that loved his career more than anything else.” Louis remembers the fighting. He also remembers the day when he went downstairs to see his father only to find his grandparents comforting his mother. As any other child would, Louis blamed himself for dad leaving and apologised endlessly to his mum. Grandad was the one to calm Louis down and explain that there was nothing anyone could have done to stop his father from leaving, because, “Everyone makes decisions according to their own free will in the end. Sure, other people have a great deal of influence, but ultimately its the individual that makes the choice.” Mum baked a pie then too.

When Louis came to the age of five, Mum fell in love with the next door neighbour. Mark is a muggle, but he never left, so Louis approved. Their love created a little girl named Charlotte, or Lottie. They call her “sweet cheeks” and layer her puffy red cheeks with kisses. Sometimes, when she doesn’t think he’s listening, Louis catches his Mum call him “miracle child” or “my little miracle.” However, this all means he’s massively older than his younger sibling, a great disappointment because he’s always wanted someone to play with.

Three girls followed Lottie. Felicite, or Fizzy, and the twins, Daisy and Phoebe. Mark and Mum are always busy taking care of his sisters and his grandparents could hardly keep up with his games, so Louis often ends up playing with the neighbour boys. What games he does play with his grandparents come in the form of books. His grandfather reads to him every night he visits (which is a few times a week). Lately, Louis’ demanded that they read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory* to Grandad’s delight. The friends Louis has made don’t appreciate his stories. They call them “muggle fantasies” and make fun of the adventures.

Once during their play time, a  few weeks ago, a boy was telling stories about Hogwarts that he learned from his older brother. Davis thrived on the attention all the other boys were giving him. “Rupert said that the headmaster McGonagall makes all the first years take a maths test, and if they fail, they go into Gryffindor,” he whispered to them, taking his time.

The boys around Louis all freak out, but he remained confused. “My mum was in Gryffindor,” he said defiantly, “What’s wrong with Gryffindor?”

Davis giggled at him. “Your mum must be rubbish at maths.”

His mum teaches him maths right now, preparing him for school, and she gets it just fine...he thought. “My mum is very smart,” he defended.

“She is now, but she wasn’t when she was eleven,” another boy our age said.

Louis relented a little by his logic, but kept his chin up. “What’s wrong with Gryffindor?”

“Mudbloods can go there,” Davis said, annoyed by his ignorance.

“What are...mudbloods?” Louis asked, confused for a second time. He made them seem so bad, but Louis likes mud. Mud is fun to play in. Oh no, what if he’s a mudblood?

“Mudbloods are wizards from muggle families,” the other boy explains.

“What’s so wrong with ‘em?”

All the boys looked at each other in confusion and annoyance. “My dad says that they don’t deserve magic.”

“My mum says that they steal magic from wizards, that’s why we have squibs.”

“They don’t belong with us, Tomlinson,” was the final word of Davis. Louis felt a little unnerved, but accepted what his friends told him. Really, Davis already knew so much more about their school than he did.

Later that night Louis sat with his parents and grandparents for dinner. Mum and Mark are chatting with Grandad about his retirement from the ministry soon. Louis’ excited for that to happen, because he gets bored whenever he’s not around. Mum is always busy with his little sisters.

“What did you do today, Lou?” Grandad asks while handing the potatoes to Mum.

“Just played with me friends. Do you think I could have extra maths lessons this week?” Louis asks his mum. She nearly chokes on her carrot in shock.

Grandad chuckles, “Lou, are you okay?”

Mum shushes him with a smack and turns to back to Louis. “Of course we can.”

“Good,” he replies with a nod.

The family has a stare down while he finishes his potatoes and Daisy burps up her banana. After a while, Grandad turns to me and asks, “So why the sudden interest in academics?”

Oh man, Louis doesn’t know if it’s because they’re so old that they forgot about the test, or if its that they did so poorly that they chose to forget about it. “I’m bad at maths and I need to get into a good house,” he reminds them gently.

Mum, Grandmum, and Grandad look at each other briefly while Mark cleans Daisy up. Grandad scratches his nose and finally replies, “You know, Louis. No matter what house you get into, we’ll still love you. We hope you know that.”

“Yes child, whatever house they put you in does not define who you are,” Grandmum adds.

“But I don’t want to be in Gryffindor,” Louis pouts.

Grandad looks as though he physically slapped him across the face while Grandmum and Mum give him a stern looks. Mum turns to me and says, “That’s okay, honey.”

“You’ll always be my Lou,” Grandad says unenthusiastically. Mum slaps his arm, again.

They return to their dinner, Grandmum tries to make small talk about the gnomes eating away at her turnips again. After a while Grandad slams his hand on the table and asks, “What’s wrong with being a Gryffindor? Your grandmother, Mum, and I were Gryffindors, is there something wrong with us?” Lottie starts to tear up at the commotion and Mark leaves to take care of her.

“Oh no, you guys are fantastic,” Louis tries to explain quickly as Mum slaps the living daylights out of him. “Davis says that mudbloods go into Gryffindor.”

The room goes still. His grandparents are shocked frozen, his mum’s hand is resting on granddad’s arm from her last slap. Eventually, to Louis’ delight, they move back into place and stare at each other in discontent. “Louis,” his Grandmum’s voice breaks the silence, “my darling angel, what did you just say? I think we may have misheard you.”

Louis feels as though he’s in trouble and tears start burning at his eyes. “Davis s-s-says that m-m-m-mudbloods g-go into Gryffindor.” He bursts into tears as his mum’s hand flies to cover her mouth. Grandmum goes pale.

“What’s wrong with, er, those folk?” Grandad asks patiently waiting for Louis to finish sobbing.

“They’re filthy. They don’t deserve magic,” he quotes to him, wiping the tears from his face.

It is at this instant that his grandparents and mum turn away from him and stare at each other. Pure disappointment obvious on their faces. “Who’s Davis, Martha?” Grandad asks Grandmum.

“Donaway’s son, Richard,” my Grandmum answers.

He sits, appalled, “They’re only children.”

“Yes, dear, but we can’t do anything about their children,” she responds, her hand lowering to clutch her heart.

He nods his head and turns to Louis. He’s begun sobbing again. He doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. “I have someone I want you to meet, Louis. Finish your vegetables,” he states, pointing his fork at Louis’ broccoli.

As his grandparents put Louis into bed that night, they kiss his forehead and took turns fluffing his pillow and tucking his blanket around him. As they began to leave, he called out to his grandad, “Aren’t you going to read a story with me?”

He turns back a smiles sadly, “Of course, Lou.” Grandmum kissed him on the cheek and leaves them to their story time. He pulls up a seat next to Louis’ bed and says, “Let me guess...Charlie and Chocolate Factory?”

“Yeah,” Louis replies, smiling. “Hey, are you and Mum angry with me?” he asks uncomfortably.

“I’m afraid not. Your mother and I could never be angry at you. We’re upset at something you said, that’s all,” he explains, patting Louis’ head.

He nods, understanding a little. “So you and mum still love me, right?”

Grandad closes the book and frowns at him. “Louis William Tomlinson, you could steal your mother’s whole candy stash, eating it all with your tiny little fingers, and we’d still love you,” he says with utmost sincerity.

“Mum has a,” Louis pulls himself close to him, Grandad lowers his ear accordingly, and Louis whispers, “chocolate factory?”

Grandad’s face reddens and he coughs back a laugh. Louis pouts in outrage, there’s nothing funny about owning a chocolate factory. Soon he pulls younger lad from his covers and sets him on his lap. “Your mother has her own chocolate factory, yes. Would you like to try and find it with me?” he asks, his brown eyes twinkling.

“Yes!” Louis exclaims and Grandad shushes the outburst gently.

“All right, but I don’t know where it is, do you know what that means?” he asks me as his grandson fumbles to get out of his lap to find his flashlight.

The young boy nods his head and smiles up at him, torch in hand, “We’re going on an adventure,” he responds.

“Good, that’s my boy. Fetch my stuff, will you? I’ve got to make sure your mother is sidetracked. We wouldn’t want her finding out about our late night search, isn’t that right?” he says, groaning as he stands up. “Quickly now, off you go. Meet me by the loo on the main floor.”

***

They got very little sleep by the time they finished trying to search for Mum’s chocolate factory. They mapped out the house as they went, labeling where interesting places were. Unfortunately, they never did find the factory, but they did find where Mum stashed all of Grandad’s no-no toys, like his cigars.

The next morning came all too soon and they promised each other that Mum would never know of that night. However late they stayed up, Louis still had to get up early this morning for Mum’s school lesson. He nearly complained until he remembered about the testing for houses coming up once he gets to Hogwarts. He’s complete rubbish at maths. Well, he’s not very good at learning anything his mum writes on her chalk board.

“Louis, pay attention! Focus on the lesson, dear. You’re the one who asked to learn more about mathematics,” his mum sighs next to where he’s sitting, cross legged, on the floor. Lottie and Fizzy are giggling and running around the room behind them.

He nods and looks at the chalk board again. As per usual, the numbers are too blurry for him to make-out. Why does his mother insist on putting the board so far away from where he’s sitting?

“Can you complete the problem on the board?” she asks, more like insists, as she prods him with her big toe.

Louis cringes a bit and stands up to make his way to the board, but his mum sits him back down on the floor. “There’s no need for that, Lou. The problem can be done mentally. Read it out loud for me,” she says.

He gulps. “Er, yes. Is it, two, no three, no two added to six…?” his statement turns into a question.

“What? No, dear, it’s three multiplied by eight. Can you really not see the board?” his mother asks, sitting down next to him.

He blushes profusely and swats away her hand. She ignores his swats and plays with his hair while staring at the board. “Well, that would explain why you’ve fallen so behind in my lessons...RICHARD!” she calls my Grandad.

He runs in the room, wand in hand, the effects of our midnight adventure evident on his face. “What is it Jay, are you two okay?” he pants.

Mum replies, “Dad, did you know that Louis can’t see the chalk board?”

He huffs in irritation, “No, Jay, I’m not the one giving him lessons.”

“Well he can’t. I believe we should go see an optometrist,” she says, standing up and pulling a confused Louis with her.

“Now?”

“Now.”

The eye guy in London said that Louis’ eyes can’t see things far away. He already knew this, but this was news to his Mum and Grandad. The bloke fitted him with glasses and sent them off. At first the frames were irritating, pinching his nose and rubbing the backs of his ears, but as soon as they walked out of the building all the colors hit him like one big freight train. “Wow,” he whispers.

“We should have noticed earlier,” his mum is saying, her hand at the bridge of her nose.

“We noticed now, and that’s all that matters, Jay,” Grandad soothes and smiles down at Louis.

He laughs when he looks back at him. “I can see all of your wrinkles from down here now.”

“Wrinkles? We best take you back in, your eyes are still buggered up,” he teases, patting his head. They laugh at each other as Mum rolls her eyes at them.

“We should stop at a few places before going back to home to Mark and the girls. We ran out of nappies this morning,” she says, rubbing at her eyes.

Grandad looks at her with a bit of a frown. “I hope by ‘nappies’ you mean ice cream, dear. A miracle of vision has been bestowed on our eleven year old lad. I say that’s cause enough for our celebration.”

Mum looks at him with a bit of annoyance before giving in.

After icecream, Mum and Grandad talk a bit to themselves while Louis plays with his new glasses. He uses the lens to magnify the sunlight at certain parts of the pavement, watching with pure curiosity as some blades of grass go up in flames.

“Okay, Louis, your grandfather is going to take you to meet a good friend of his. I’m going to go back home and cook dinner, okay?” she asks him.

He nods and watches her apparates with a _pop!_ home. “Where are we going?” Louis asks the elderly man as he grabs his hand. They begin walking to the fireplace in Tom’s pub. With a quick nod of consent from the bartender, he shouts,“Ministry of Magic,” throwing down the black-green floo powder in the bricks, and they walk into the green flames.

The building is big, but can barely hold the mass of people flowing through the corridors, going up lifts, and waiting next to a big fountain. “Come along, don’t get lost now,” his grandad motions at him to keep pace with his large steps.

They reach a lift, everyone they pass nods their head at his grandad who nods back at them. They enter a lift packed with people and his grandad grabs onto his hand. “You might want to grab onto me, Lou,” he warns and the younger boy holds onto his grandfather’s leg for dear life.

The lift goes up, down, left, right, and diagonally letting people off. So much so was the movement, that Louis wasn’t even sure which direction they went to get to their floor. Grandad pulls him down the corridor, passed several doors, and into a foyer type of a room.

A younger bloke with bright eyes and light brown coloured hair greets them from behind a big desk. “Hello Richard, you’re not on duty now, right?” he asks.

“No, Henry, I’m just here to see Gary. Any news from Kingsley, while we’re on the subject,” Grandad asks the bloke.

He shakes his head. “He wants to sit this out for now. He’ll contact you as soon as he can,” he answers. Grandad nods in comprehension. “Gary’s in the training room. Should I send for him?”

“Nah, I’ll go to him,” Grandad waves him off. “Oh, Henry, I’d like you to meet my favourite grandson, Louis,” he adds with a patting Louis on his head.

“I’m your only grandson,” he laughs.

Henry stands up and looks at him over his desk. Louis’ taken by how pretty this boy is with his easy going smile and small indents framing his lips.  “Well hello there, lad. I hear a lot about you. Your grandfather really likes you,” he coos.

Louis blushes at the pretty boy’s words. His grandad stares at him in surprise and turns to Henry, “He’s quiet, that’s a first,” he says to him and chuckles away his confusion. Henry joins his laughter and Louis’ cheeks turn a deeper red. “Come along, Lou, you can talk to Henry later.”

He waves goodbye to Pretty Henry and runs after his grandad. They enter another room, except this one is very, very different. The room is very large with wooden floors and very few lights. The middle of the floor is empty, save for a wooden doll or two. The walls of the room are covered with wooden dolls and training weapons. In the middle of the room is a man practicing charms on a dummy. His charms light up the room with many different colors, but he focuses mostly on the red charms.

“Gary Tremlett, I have someone who needs to meet you,” Grandad calls to the man.

He turns around and smiles instantly at his new company. His eyes trail down to Louis and his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Why ‘ello there little fellow. What’s your name?” he bends down to Louis’ level and the younger lad can really pick out his details.

He has short, black hair with scars tracing the side of his face. His eyes are dark brown and his nose reminds him instantly of a parrot he’s seen at the zoo. However, the man’s smile lightens up his face making his dark eyes glisten in a way that brings attention away from these features.

Still a bit nervous, the boy holds his chin up and says, “I’m Louis Tomlinson. Who are you?”

The man laughs and smiles up at his grandad. “He is a fiesty one, isn’t he? My name is Gary Harold Tremlett. I work for your grandfather.”

“With me,” the older man corrects and ruffles Gary’s hair. “I brought Lou here to talk to you for a bit. I’ve got some paperwork piling up on my desk. Be back real soon,” he finishes looking at Louis. He pats his hair and turns to leave.

Louis gulps to relieve his dry throat as I watches his grandad leave and slowly turns back to Gary. He’s trying to balance his wand on his nose! “Gary! You’ve got to show me how to do that,” Louis demands of him, breaking what awkwardness he still felt towards this man.

He agrees with a nod and carefully tilts my head back to balance his wand on Louis’ small nose. “You’ve got it!” he announces, letting go of the boy’s chin.

Louis laughs and does it a few more times on his own. Gary remarks, “You’ll make a lot of friends with that trick. Do you want me to teach you how to whistle?”

“Whistle?”

He blows a soft tune through his lips and the younger lad is immediately enthralled. “Teach me, please,” he tells him.

The next hour they play tag and Gary tells him stories about the bad blokes he puts in Azkaban. “You see, this one fellow kept playing jokes on muggles. Not the good kind of jokes, but the bad kind that made the muggles very, very unhappy. He didn’t heed his warnings so we had to go get him and he made it very difficult. He was very skilled with charms and took down a whole lot of aurors before I got to him.”

“What did you do then?” Louis asks him, begging for him to finish his story.

Gary leaned back, divulging in the attention. “Well, instead of sending charms at him, I just went up and tackled him to the ground.”

“Tackled him?”

“Yeah, like this!” Gary sits up and jumps on Louis, tickling him endlessly. Eventually he stops and says, “All right, I’m sure your grandfather misses you, kid.”

Louis pouts, but nods and walks with him to the exit. A question pops into his mind once he opens the door. “Hey Gary, what house were you in at Hogwarts?”

“Gryffindor!” Gary responds with much enthusiasm.

Louis laughs at him and then asks, “But what about the mudbloods?”

Gary stops walking and stares at the young lad in confusion. He looks around at the next to empty room and motions for Louis to come closer to him as he crouches down. “Can I tell you a secret, kid?”

Louis’ eyes bug at the opportunity to learn something little people know and he nods greedily.

“Good. I’m a mudblood,” Gary says, winking.

“But you’re so cool!” Louis practically screams in surprise.

Gary nods and ruffles his hair. “You know why I’m so cool? Its because I don’t care about that blood stuff, kid. In fact, you know what your grandfather told me when I was training? It doesn’t matter where I came from. What matters is where I choose to go. Choices make the person.”

Louis nods, speechless.

“Besides,” he adds, “those people who hate on others because of that rubbish make the worst whistlers.”

The younger lad agrees with him. He bets Davis can’t even whistle. Gary smiles at the enthusiasm and holds out his pinky. “Will you promise me that you will never judge another person? Just respect everyone.”

Louis gives him his pinky and they intertwine them, signifying the importance of this pact. Once they finish with the promise, they race him to Grandad’s office where they find him staring at a pile of paperwork.

***

King’s Cross station, itself, is massive. They walk through the grand corridors and pass so many different looking people. It’d be more overwhelming if Louis wasn’t laughing so hard at  Grandad’s struggle with the trunk. “Why can’t you just levitate it?” he asks between snorts.

“Can’t do magic here, little piggie,” he replies.

Mum comes back to us with a trolley and Grandad kisses her cheek gratefully. “Why can’t you do magic?” Louis asks, confused. He levitated the shopping bags when they were in Diagon Alley.

“Its impolite in muggle areas, Louis. I told you that in our lessons,” Mum replies, fixing the young lad’s fringe.

He faintly remembers her mentioning that muggles get offended by magic. Or maybe she said that they get scared? Either way, it’s rude to offend or scare strangers. “Right,” Louis confirms and moves to push the trolley.

Grandad lets him and Mum guides them to a pillar. “You wanna go first or last?” the elderly man asks his grandson, nodding at the solid looking pillar.

Louis pulls his glasses off and rubs the smooth, red marks on my nose. He doesn’t want to run at the pillar. What if he isn’t actually a wizard and ends up slamming against the bricks? They would be so disappointed. “You go first,” he decides, putting his glasses back on his nose.

Grandad doesn’t question, just grabs Mum’s hand and strolls straight through the bricks. As soon as they leave, Louis immediately regrets his decision. Terror fills his tummy and he fumbles to straighten out his trolley with the pillar. Okay, he just has to go at it. Don’t be a baby. Just go at it.

Its between his pep talk and actually running at the pillar that he hears the bored sounding voice. “Zayn, put that book away,” it says.

“Let me finish this chapter,” a higher sounding voice responds warily.

“Come on, honey. Listen to your father and put the book away. You can finish it on the train,” a soothing sounding voice breaks Louis’ concentration entirely and he can’t help but search them out.

A family of two frowning people and one smiling woman meets his view. He knows its them, because the lad places his book gently into his pocket. The boy’s hair is pretty silly, though. Its pulled up from his forehead into a swirly quiff, a few tendrils hang next to his neck and curl up into his skin. If Louis’ mum saw him, she’d chase him down with a pair of scissors.

The second thing Louis notices about the family is that they’re not wearing muggle clothes. Black robes hang from their shoulders and the unfortunate muggles who are caught off guard by their appearance are given a heated glare by the older man before being completely ignored out of what appears to be disgust.

The quiffed lad catches Louis’ staring and his frown deepens. If that’s possible. Well, it must be possible, because he’s doing it.

“Mum, that muggle is hanging around the pillar. What are we supposed to do?” he ponders out loud to the smiling woman. She’s quite beautiful. Her deep brown hair looks like silk, framing her heart shaped face and falling across her shoulders. The older man looks terrifying in comparison. Not really his appearance, just the way he holds himself. Like he’s better than everyone else.

The man meets his stare and his stomach drops. Louis has never felt so much hate in one glare before. He has an urge to drop his eyes and leave them, but a greater part of him is itching to stay. Louis was here first and he has no right to look at him like he’s dirt.

The greater part wins out and he holds the man’s stare, a blush crawling up his neck.

“He’s not a muggle. That’s Troy Austin’s boy. Looks just like him,” the man’s bored voice cuts the atmosphere. He breaks the eye contact to look away and Louis feels dazed, not sure what to do now. Its not often that he hears his father’s name and winces at the man’s observation. He’s heard whisperings about his appearance and how he looks just like his father, but never from a complete stranger.

The family passes by without a second glance at him, save for the small smile the woman sends his way. They go through the pillar and Louis is felt feeling embarrassed and hurt...he just wants to crawl into his bed where frowning people who know his father don’t exist. The brick pillar seems so unfriendly and dangerous now. His head falls dejected on his hands and his feet give out accordingly. He can feel the tears well up and that makes him feel even more embarrassed and unhappy. Curled up on the floor, he fights with himself.

Maybe he should just run away. Grandad will be so disappointed if he finds out that Louis can’t even get himself to try to go through the pillar. He could live in the forest. The one just outside their house in Doncaster. That way he can see his mum and sisters grown up, but not bother them with his embarrassing self. He could live in a tree and play with the squirrels.

Just as he’s about to contemplate his whittling abilities, Louis hears feet shuffle towards him and feels a hand rest on his arm. “Are you okay?” a boy’s voice asks.

It takes a second to remember what he must look like huddled on the floor with his hands covering his face and only a second more to jump away from the hand to stand up. Louis quickly rearranges himself so that he’s clutching his trolley and looking pointedly forward at the pillar.

He can see the boy reach out for him again in the corner of his eye and he jumps away a second time. “I’m fine, really!” he explains in exasperation. “Was just trying to memorise the palm of my hands!”

He looks over to see two boys his age, both of them are looking at Louis as though he’s told them a really horrible joke. The boy closest to him breaks out of his discomfort first and smiles at Louis. His brown hair is a mess of very loose curls on top of his head, but a single tendril has fallen into his face just over his eyes. A pair of dark green eyes bewilder him and Louis drops his gaze to find a pair of deep indents framing the boy’s smile. He mentally compares these dimples to the one Henry possesses and this boy’s are much deeper. He’s impressed.

It takes the grunt of someone clearing their throat for him to realize that he’s staring. He quickly looks back at the pillar, sneaking a few peeks at the boy from the corner of his eyes. “I’m fine,” he repeats.

“Good,” the other boy responds to me politely. He has shaggy brown hair, his eyes match his tone of voice. A warm brown. He’s not smiling, but his thick eyebrows are pulled together in concern and concentration. He casts a few looks at Louis that he catches in the corner of his eyes. Then, he completely ignores him, turning his back to him and blocking the dimpled boy from his line of vision. “Okay, Harry,” he continues in a more gentle tone of voice. “The platform is beyond that pillar.”

“Is that why my mum couldn’t come in?” the boy, Harry, asks the other boy.

“Yes, only magical people can go through the barrier,” he replies, still gentle.

Louis gives up his staring at the pillar and openly watches the conversation between the two. His parents aren’t magical? That must mean that they’re muggles...which would make him...a...muggle-born! He seems just as nice as Gary and not at all horrible as Davis suggested. Actually, he’s even more pretty than Henry. Louis blushes as soon as he thinks this, but continues to stare openly at them.

Harry nods his head at his friend and looks over at the pillar in contemplation. “Um, Liam, how are we supposed to pass through it?” he asks him.

Liam blushes and shuffles his feet. “I actually don’t...I think you press a certain brick or something,” he stammers.

Press a certain brick? That’s silly.

The glare of the boy, Liam, and the confused expression on Harry makes Louis realise that he must have said that outloud. “Erm, you’re supposed to walk through it,” he tells them.

Harry looks to his friend to see if that’s true and he blushes in embarrassment. “That’s absurd! I’ve read somewhere that you tap on the bricks. You’re an idiot,” he shouts at Louis.

“I’m not an idiot!” Louis shouts back.

“If you’re not an idiot, why are you out here? If you knew how to do it, you’d be in there,” Liam nods his head at the pillar and folds his arms across his chest.

Louis folds his own arms across his chest and matches his glare. “I’m more than capable of going through the pillar, I just don’t want to yet,” he says, omitting the part about his plan to run away to live in a forest.

“Liar,” Liam hisses.

Louis opens his mouth to respond, but is interrupted by a round woman pushing a trolley and pulling along a worried looking boy. He has bright blonde hair and watery blue eyes. “Excuse us! Sorry for interrupting, but we’re running late!” she squeaks as she barrels by, not stopping and running straight through the pillar, boy in tow.

A content smirk pulls at Louis’ face when he looks back at Liam. His face has gone completely red and he pushes passed them and through the pillar without a word, leaving Harry and his trolley. Once he leaves, Harry freezes and pales.

The words come out on their own. “My grandad says that if you’re nervous, it’s best to take it at a run.”

“I’m not nervous,” he replies, but his blushing gives him away.

Louis laughs and runs a hand through his messy fringe. Harry squints at the action. “Erm, we could run at it together?” he stammers at Harry, feeling the blush come back. Geez, he didn’t even think it was possible for people to blush this much.

“No, I can do it alone,” he says, grabbing and pushing both his, and Liam’s trolleys to the pillar. He takes it at a run and leaves Louis utterly blown away.

With a quick shake of his head, he follows him, running, through the pillar.

Grandad’s hands grab his jumper almost as soon as he passes through and the elderly man claps the young lad against his chest. Mum pulls him away after a split second and the boy gets slammed in her chest too, her fingers are run through his hair comfortingly.

“Took you long enough, Lou,” Grandad says with a chuckle. Louis can’t see his face, but one of Mum’s hands leaves his hair and he hears her slapping and his shouts of pain.

“Why” _slap!_ “Did” _slap!_ “We” _slap!_ “Even” _slap!_ “Leave” _slap!_ “Him” _slap!_ “in the first place?!” a few more slaps follow.

Grandad runs away and Mum drops the boy to chase after him. A bit dazed he looks up to see one of the frowning quiffed boy staring at him. The boy ducks his head, grabs his trunk, and storms onto the train. His mother coos after him while the father stares over the crowd with a bored indifference. His departure doesn’t even faze him.

When they come back, Grandad possesses a large red mark on his cheek. He drops down to his knees and looks at Louis.. “You excited?” he asks, ruffling his hair.

The younger boy returns his enthusiasm. “Yes!”

He nods his head once and stands back up. “Good, let’s get you off to get a proper education!” he states with a punch in the air.

Mum glares and slaps his arm. “ _OUCH!_ Sorry, Jay, let’s get you off to get an equally good education, but from other educators!” he restates with less enthusiasm.

Mum nods and kisses his cheek before bending down and kissing her son’s cheek. “ _MUM!_ ” Louis hisses and pushes her away, looking around quickly. It doesn’t seem like anyone noticed.

“Do you want us to help you find a seat?” she asks and he waves her off, grabbing his trunk. Louis huffs at the weight and his grandad laughs.

“Here,” he says, waving his wand. “I can levitate it now.” He pauses, looking down at his grandson. Louis blinks in surprise at the tears in his eyes, but his grandfather yanks him up into a cuddle before the boy can really tell whether or not they were tears. “Be safe. Be good. Write,” he grumbles into his hair.

He drops him and points to the train. “Now go before your mum doesn’t let you leave,” he says with another ruffle to his hair.

Louis nods and waves a teary goodbye at them before bounding onto the train. He hears a faint, “Give ‘em hell, Miracle Child,” but brushes it off.

***

It’s harder than he thought it’d be, finding a compartment. The compartment Davis and his friends were in was full and he heard them laugh when he left. Feeling a bit peeved, Louis ends up walking into a compartment already occupied by a sleeping boy. He doesn’t even give the boy a second glance before he slams the door shut and pushes the levitating trunk onto the shelf above the seat.

Gary was right, his friends are prats.

Louis sits and glares at the country side view out the window. The sleeping boy doesn’t even stir, and he’s glad. He doesn’t really feel up to talking to a stranger, even if he looks familiar. It hits him after a second. Its the blonde haired, blue eyed boy from earlier.. He seems about Louis’ age. His trunk is a fairly new, but slightly used thing that says Horan. That sounds like one of those names his mum says in her lectures. That thought puts Louis in a worse mood. He doesn’t like thinking of those boring home school lectures.

Eventually he can’t take it anymore and he yanks his glasses off, throwing them on the cushion next to him. Louis rubs the tender bridge of his nose and fights against the tears. Everything’s blurry, but he prefer that to the pinch. He stays like this after he calms himself down, cuddled up against the seat, rubbing his fingers against the smoothed out red marks on his nose. He doesn’t bother to look at the blurry figure who opens up the compartment, but Louis recognises the voice, to his horror.

“You mind if I sit here? Everywhere else is full,” he says. Its the boy from the frowning family.

As Louis is about to throw him out, another voice answers him, one with an Irish lilt and too much energy, “Yes, come in. We don’t need the whole compartment.”

Louis feels betrayed by the sleeping boy, but decides that he doesn’t actually care all that much. He grabs his glasses and places them on his nose, but gasps at what he sees. There’s a crack down the middle of his left lens. “What have I done?!” he shouts, scrambling up out of his seat.

The two boys jaws drop as Louis jumps up and down and shouts some more. “I can’t...run away...yes, I need to run away...I’m a complete embarrassment...forest...squirrels…” are the only few comprehensible words that come out of his mouth.

“Would you relax? You’ll burn a hole in the carpet,” the blonde haired, Irish boy says before he grabs Louis’ shoulders and sets him back down in a single movement.

As soon as he’s sat down, the quiffed boy scrambles in front of his knees and mutters soothing sentences, “Breath, yes, that’s right. Breath in, breath out, you don’t need to run away. You’re not an embarrassment. Some forests do contain squirrels, but I don’t know what that has to do with your spectacles.”

Louis relaxes at his words and nods his head accordingly. The boy is a bit pale looking now that he’s up close. He has dark purple circles underneath his eyes that look painful. Louis wants to reach out and cover them up because the boy is really pretty otherwise.  His eyes are a brown colour that reminds Louis faintly of chocolate and he finds himself saying, “Chocolate, I need chocolate.”

“What?” the blonde boy barks. He’s relaxing back against his seat, watching them in amusement.

“Chocolate,” he repeats, nodding his head. “Chocolate makes everything better.”

“That doesn’t seem logical,” the boy at his knees says, his eyebrows are raised.

Louis shrugs his shoulders. “It has healing components,” he argues easily with a flick of his hand.

“It’s candy,” the quiffed boy retaliates.

Louis raises his voice accordingly, “Doesn’t matter.”

“Enough!” the lounging boy says, annoyed at the argument. “We’ll get you some chocolate.”

“We will?”

“Yes, now come on before he breaks down again,” he snaps getting up and pulling the boy out of the compartment with him.

Louis grins and decides that this is a whole lot better than moping around. They return shortly with chocolate and a bunch of other assortments of sweetss. The Irish boy says, “This trolley was just down the hall, selling things.” He hands a lounging Louis a bar of chocolate before resting down in his seat to dig into his own sweets.

The quiffed haired boy pouts and snaps, “Lucky little git.” Louis beams at him in reply and the boy falls, startled, back into his seat.

“Sorry for freaking out earlier,” he tells them, mouth already full. When he swallows the bar down, he stares at them, contemplating. Granted, they had a bit of a rough start, but Louis sees some serious friend potential in them. Maybe this is because his former friends would never have jumped up to help him like they did. The blonde boy either doesn’t notice the staring or doesn’t care. The quiffed boy, however, is frowning again and sinking further and further into his seat. That won’t do.

“Let me make it up to you!” Louis announces, sitting up in his own seat. “I have a joke.” He grins because the joke is awful. Horrible, actually. His grandfather has a terrible sense of humour that is ridiculously endearing. “What did one hat say to the other? You stay here, I’ll go on a head!”

Blank faces blink back at him. The quiffed boy looks faintly nauseous and the blonde boy actually looks slightly amused. “Didn’t like that one?” Louis keeps his smirk off his face. “Let me try another o--”

“No,” the quiffed haired boy shouts as he lunges and covers Louis’ mouth roughly with his hand.  “There’s no need for another joke, okay?”

He nods his head and the boy releases him to sit back in his seat. They all go back to staring at each other, before Louis decides against another horrible joke and goes back to smiling contently at his new mates. After awhile his gaze lingers out the window to watch the sun setting over a pair of green hills. Its quite beautiful. He faintly wonders what the castle will look like, whether its set against mountains or tucked in a pair of rolling hills. He should have asked more about Hogwarts, really. He’s going in blind, which is somewhat unsettling.

The content silence is nice and he nearly falls asleep before a boy’s voice startles him, “Zayn Malik!”

Louis looks over at the quiffed haired boy in puzzlement. The surname is vaguely familiar. “What was that?” he asks him.

Zayn drops his head and stares at the ground. “My name is Zayn Malik.”

“Oh, okay,” he shrugs when he finally understands. “My name’s Louis Tomlinson.”

“I know,” Zayn responds, eyes still on the ground.

Louis shrugs a second time and turns to the other boy. He must have been startled by the outburst too, because he’s looking amusedly between Louis and Zayn like they’re some kind of interesting telly programme. “What’s your name?” he asks him.

He responds, his voice belting it out proudly. “Niall Horan.”

That explains the name on the trunk. “Well, I’m a bit bored, you guys want to explore the train?” Louis asks them.

He jumps when Zayn blurts again, “My father told me not to talk to you!”

“Erm-”

“That’s how I know your name,” he cuts off. He’s huffing at the ground, refusing to look at anyone. Niall looks close to laughter. Yes, Louis will keep him.

After a moment, he says slowly, “Does that mean you don’t want to explore the train?”

Zayn looks up, confused. “My family are purists. I’m probably going to end up marrying a cousin. My dad thinks your grandad is filth because your mum is dating a muggle and he says your eyes remind him of pond water.”

Louis blinks and bursts out laughing. Niall joins easily. Pond water? He’s often had people tell him his eyes are a nice coloured blue, but this certainly tops that.  His snorts fill the compartment and soon Zayn gives in and chuckles with them. Niall looks like he’s going to faint, so Louis pulls him to his side of the compartment. Niall tries to get away from the hold and ends up falling to the ground, clutching his stomach.

Eventually Louis wipes at his “pond water” eyes and picks Niall from the floor. They grin at each other before turning to Zayn and pouncing on him. Zayn grunts and tries to get away, but they’ve got him locked down. Louis ruffles his hair, despite his protests and Niall tickles at his ribs.

“Enough!” he gasps and slaps them away.

They let go and Louis sits on top of him, taking great comfort in his exasperated sigh. Niall continues to laugh to himself and goes to sit back in his own seat.

“My father is going to throw a fit,” Zayn tells us with a shrug. Louis has grown quite fond of him in the last ten minutes and would be rather gutted if he left, but he doesn’t leave.

“My mother is going to throw a fit over my glasses,” he changes the subject and points at his broken lenses.

Zayn shoves him off his lap. “I can fix them,” he states and holds his hands out. Louis hands them over without a second thought and watches Zayn mutter an incantation under his breath. A pale light leaves the tip of his wand and engulfs the cracked lens, filling them in. The light soon fades, leaving behind a nice set of fixed spectacles. Zayn smiles and tosses them back to Louis.

“Woah,” a voice from the compartment door interrupts them. Harry and Liam are standing in the open threshold, staring at Louis’ glasses in his hand.

“Oi, are you lost?” Zayn asks, frowning again.

Liam pinks and when he turns to look at him, his mouth drops open and Harry’s the one that saves him. “Erm, we were kicked out of our compartment,” he explains.

“We’ve got room,” Niall says easily, hopping up and pulling both of them in. Louis feels slightly betrayed by the lad a second time. “Niall Horan,” he introduces himself easily, waving as he sits back in his seat.

Louis snatches the small bit of cushion between Zayn and Niall while Harry and Liam sit across from them, putting their trunks on the shelving above their heads. “Harry Styles,” Harry replies easily, sitting down.

“Liam Payne,” Liam gives more reluctantly, sitting right next to Harry. He glares at Louis and that’s rather rude of him.

“Louis Tomlinson,” he supplies with a broad smile and a wink to Harry, because he was raised with manners and Harry is rather pretty when he blushes. Harry frowns and shuffles closer to Liam, who automatically places an arm around Harry’s shoulders. The action is like a kick to Louis’ stomach.

Zayn seems more hesitant to talk to them, so Louis fills the silence to get his mind off Liam’s arm. “This is Zayn. He’s a bit of a prick, but his silly hair makes up for it,” he announces loudly. Niall laughs automatically next to him.

Liam frowns again. “I like your hair,” he tells Zayn, but Zayn ignores him, pulling out a book hidden in his robes. Louis blinks at the book and watches as Zayn slowly cuddles deeper into the cushion. Almost as if he’s willing it to engulf him.

Niall asks, “Why did you get kicked out of your compartment?” trying to dig everyone out of the awkward silence.

Liam pulls Harry closer to his chest and looks away. Harry lets himself be pulled in and tilts his head into the crook of Liam’s neck. “They didn’t like that my, erm, mother and sister are muggles,” he tells Liam’s neck.

An unfamiliar tugging sensation pulls at Louis’ chest. Zayn stiffens next to him, but continues to read his book and Niall’s smile finally falls off his face. “Who were they?” Louis demands.

Harry shuffles awkwardly in his seat and ducks further into Liam. “That’s not important,” he tells Liam’s collar bones.

“Course it is. They’re just don’t understand that houses don’t matter, whistling is cool, and maths is rubbish,” Louis says valiantly, tilting his chin and beaming at the green-eyed lad.

Liam snorts. “You’re rather stupid, aren’t you?”

Zayn’s book falls from his grip and he pulls out from his niche in the cushion. “Sorry?” he demands of Liam, face pulled into a scowl that pouts his lips and makes his eyebrows arch.

Liam blinks. His big lips are pulled into a tight line. “He’s not exactly a muggle-born or half-blood, is he? He hardly understands and what’s that rubbish about whistling?”

“I’ll have you know that whatever rubbish spews from Louis’ mouth is a million times more intelligent than what you can come up with,” Zayn replies easily. Eyes on fire. Louis isn’t sure how Liam is standing his ground.

He sputters, hands curling into fists where they rest on Harry’s back. Louis watches Harry cuddle further into Liam and tries to take control of the situation. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration,” he squeaks out.

“Whatever,” Zayn huffs, picking up his book and reading it in the most passive aggressive way Louis has ever seen.

Niall eye is twitching and he looks like he’s about to run away. Louis tries again, “That stuff doesn’t matter, right? We’re all here to do magic.” He watches as Harry pulls his head up. There is a layer of unshed tears in his beautiful green eyes. Maybe Louis will get passed the fact that Liam rubs him the wrong way just to be able to talk to Harry. Wow, that thought sends him into a stammering frenzy. “Like it d-doesn’t mat-ter what houses we get put in, just as long as we remain friends,” he concludes, albeit ineloquently.

Zayn grunts his agreement and Niall nods spastically next to him. Liam lifts one of his thick, bushy eyebrows. “Obviously houses are important. They create unity between students,” he argues. Louis can’t help but roll his eyes, can the bloke just not contradict everything he says for one minute?

“Unity? Is that what you call it?” Zayn snaps, nose still firmly in his book.

“There’s a reason the four founders created them,” Liam states firmly.

Zayn snorts. “Okay, sure. If your definition of ‘unity’ is a school of students that are competing against each other for some worthless cup at the end of year that honestly means nothing in the end. What it does is split the students up, creating unnecessary drama.”

This has gotten out of hand.

“Oh, and then rubbish things like blood-lines and purist values are brought into the mix. Some houses are suddenly better than others, which doesn’t make sense because they’re literally nothing more than a group of homesick teenagers. How can some be better than others?” Zayn concludes and gets up from his seat. “I’m going to the loo,” he announces before waltzing away.

Liam watches him leave with an awestruck expression. Harry pulls himself out from his grasp and looks around warily before settling on watching the darkened night drag outside the window. Niall, ever the peacemaker, attempts to strike a conversation. “Erm, I’m hoping for Gryffindor or Hufflepuff,” he chuckles at the irony of his statement.

“Gryffindor for me,” Louis states, happy for a change of atmosphere. He throws his arm around Niall’s shoulders encouragingly and Niall smiles proudly to himself. “Liam?” he turns to the annoying boy who shrugs.

“Doesn’t really matter now, does it?” he replies, eyes still fixed on Zayn’s vacated spot.

“Course it does!” Louis grins enthusiastically. “What about you, Harry?” he asks a little more gently.

The curly haired lad looks up startled and begins fidgeting with his robes. “Erm, I don’t really know? I mean, they all have their different advantages?”

Louis nods along encouragingly. “Course.”

Harry frowns a bit at the movement and goes on. “I mean, from what Liam’s told me, I guess Ravenclaw wouldn’t be so bad?”

“Good choice,” he responds, eager just at this opportunity to know a little more about such a pretty boy.

Liam seems to shake himself out of his daze and focuses on Louis again. “What would you know anyway?”

Having to go on the defense against his harsh tone seems like such a chore after talking to the soft-spoken curly haired lad. “My mum and grandparents,” he bluffs, because the truth is that the most they’ve talked about Hogwarts has been the past few weeks. Grandad is more focused on things happening in the Ministry and Mum has been running after his little sisters. Like he mentioned, he’s flying blind here.

“Oh so you and your wizarding family know everything about everything, don’t you,” Liam barks and, there’s nothing he can say to fix this, is there? “I bet you’re going to go into Slytherin with the blokes from the other compartment.”

Zayn’s appears like an angel from heavens, having heard the last bit Liam’s sentence. “What’s wrong with Slytherin? Me mum was in Slytherin.” Louis remembers the beauty of Zayn’s mother and the kind, small smile she gave him in passing, and...yeah, not everyone in Slytherin cares about the dirty blood thing everyone keeps spewing on about.

Liam’s caught off guard maybe a third or a fourth time? He huffs and stands up, grabbing his and Harry’s trunk. Muttering something about changing into their robes before they reach the school, he leaves. “How are you friends with him?” Louis finds himself asking when Harry stands up to follow.

Harry gets a troubled look on his face and frowns before folding his arms across his chest. “He’s not always like that. He’s really sweet, actually. You two,” he glares between Louis and Zayn. “Have been nothing but rude to him the moment you both met him.”

He exchanges smiles and waves at Niall before flitting out of the compartment to find Liam. Louis watches him go, contemplating...yes, he will do.

“What an arse!” Zayn announces, dropping down into his seat.

Niall shrugs, pulling his robes on over his head without a second thought. “They were alright. Had a bit of a scare, yeah? Some upperclassmen can be harsh to firsties. Especially about the purist rubbish.”

“That doesn’t give him enough reason to take it out on Lou,” Zayn grumbles, easily slipping in the nickname as though they’ve known each other for years. Louis likes his loyalty.

“What about Harry?” he finally voices, because he should take in the opinions of his new best mates.

Niall smiles. “I like him.”

“He’s all right. A bit quiet,” Zayn supplies.

Louis nods. Good, because Harry is pretty and Louis likes pretty things.

* * *

 *All rights to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory belong to Roald Dahl


	2. ONE or the One Where People Should Really Listen to Liam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn becomes catatonic (more than once); Liam needs to get his priorities sorted (and fix his spelling); Niall loves his hair (and gossip); Harry doesn't care for dramatics (or anything Louis-related); and Louis basically controls the school (and likes winning bets). 
> 
> Or the chappie where rivalries are solidified and declarations are made. In front of the entire school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny story: I was up north for the weekend with my parents and I told them that I had to get back to London because I had a deadline to meet. They were so proud that I didn't have the heart to tell them that my "deadline" was an update to this fanfiction story about a boyband in Hogwarts. So, you all have inadvertently made my parents think that I am a sophesticated adult. Good work.
> 
> More important news: LOOK ZIAM! Also because I didn't mention it last time (stupid Jack), this is set after the first wizarding war and before Potter scampers off to Hogwarts. I like to refer to this time as "When the Weasley's Took-Over Hogwarts" because Bill and Charlie are amazing (and the only wizards I know in this time period). So, you'll see some Weasleys being mentioned. Mostly time period is important in understanding the WHOLE PLOT. Not really, but a good chunk of the plot. Don't worry, I'm a good writer (don't roll your eyes like that. rude.), so this all gets explained in the story. 
> 
> \--Now that I have efficiently confused/annoyed you, enjoy!

“You owe me five sickles!” Louis announces, coming over to the Gryffindor table and sitting right next to where Zayn is currently revising his potions essay by his plate of eggs and bacon.

Zayn sighs and places his quill down delicately. He loves him, he really does, but Louis has a habit of finding him whenever he tries to get actual work done. He suspects this is not on accident. “You do realise that we have an exam next week, right? Snape has been trying to fail you ever since you asked him how many times a month he showers.”

Louis blinks and frowns. “It was an honest to god question.”

“Right, you really wanted to know your potions instructor’s hygiene habits. It had nothing to do with the fact that Snape taunted Harry Styles for answering a question wrong,” Zayn drones.

“Like anyone actually knows the difference between hogs tongue and beetle dung,” he huffs before ignoring Zayn’s pointed look. “Anyway, as I was saying before you rudely interrupted me--”

“Rudely interrupted you--” he starts to protest, but Louis places his hand over his mouth.

“I have won an argument and you owe me five sickles for it!”

Zayn waits patiently for Louis to remove his hand before giving him the best glare he can manage so early in the morning. Louis is unfazed. “We betted that I couldn’t get into the Slytherin dungeon. Pay up.” He holds his hand out.

Five first year Gryffindors sitting closely to them (not having learned their lesson that the rest of the house knows to sit as far away as possible yet) drop their utensils and stare openly at them. One of them chokes on their bacon and has to get CPR to recover. “I need proof,” Zayn tells Louis, winking at the little firsties. It feels nice to have an audience.

Louis makes a show of groaning and complaining, but reaches into his satchel anyway, pulling out a well-used teddy bear. “This is Parker’s,” he states, holding the bear as though it were a pair of old socks or used tissues.

“You could have paid someone to get that for you,” he replies, because it has happened before.

“I would never--

“Stop with the dramatics, the firsties left.” Zayn points to the vacated spot formerly occupied by the five first years. One of them even forgot their satchel in their haste to get away. Such a pity.

Louis pouts at the empty spaces and turns back, looking thoroughly put out. “And here I thought us Gryffindors were supposed to be brave.” He shakes his head and continues on. “We are going to the dungeons tonight and I’ll prove that I can get in.”

“What? Why?”

“We aren’t heartless, Zayn. Little Tom needs his sleep buddy to keep him company,” he explains, throwing the teddy bear back into his satchel. He pats Zayn’s head and leaves just as quickly as he came.

Louis has been sneaking out into the corridors since year one when he tried to figure out where the Hufflepuffs rest (“Not because of Harry, Zayn. Such information is for educational purposes. Don’t ask me how, its science.”), so its no surprise that he drags Zayn out with him every once in a while. Hell, Zayn ends up going out with him more often than not. Niall claims its because he doesn’t like feeling left out, but come on, it's not like it’d do anyone any good to have Louis sneaking about all by himself. That’s a safety hazard in itself.

So, now that they’re thirteen and two years wiser, they’ve pretty much got the castle memorised. All that’s left, as Louis and him argued about yesterday, is getting into those areas they’re not allowed. For a good reason, but that’s never stopped Louis before.

Niall and Charlie Weasley join him soon after Louis’ departure. Niall leans over and steals the bacon from his plate. “Where’s your husband?” he asks, bacon muffling the question.

“Louis and I aren’t married,” Zayn replies automatically. Sadly, the rumours at this school are never satisfied when it comes to them. Some of the younger girls have even dubbed them ‘Zouis’ which is hardly creative or imaginative.

Niall’s left eyebrow shoots up. He and Charlie exchange amused looks that have Zayn grinding his teeth. Charlie’s the one that speaks up, “Not Lou, we were wondering where Liam’s gone off to.”

What. “Liam? Liam Payne?” he tries clarifying.

“Pretty sure it’s Liam Malik, or Liam Payne-Malik depending on what you two decide, but he’s pretty whipped. So I’m thinking Liam Malik for sure,” Charlie says, elbowing Niall. The two chuckle at each other.

Zayn slowly lifts his head and gives them the glare he usually saves for Louis. The two stop their laughter and cringe, a wave of a shudder goes through them at the same time. “We were just kidding, Zee,” Niall whispers. Charlie nods his agreement and they huddle close.

“I don’t understand the joke,” Zayn mutters darkly.

There are two things at this school that are universally known throughout the whole population. One being that Louis Tomlinson is obsessed with the Hufflepuff boy, Harry Styles and the second being that their fellow Gryffindor, Liam Payne and Louis Tomlinson hate each other. By all accounts, that automatically means him and Liam hate each other too, because Louis and him have been together since day one. Zouis fan clubs are not just a part of Louis’ insane imagination.

Niall sits up in his seat and runs a hand through his completely fake lilac blonde hair. A prank gone wrong in that Louis thought Niall would hate it, but their cheery Irish friend adores his new hair (“Of course I had to pull the hair dye joke on the one person who doesn’t care,” Louis groans loudly during Herbology. Professor Sprout and Harry Styles both glared at his interruption for different reasons). He reaches out and places his pale hand on Zayn’s. “Oh you blind, ignorant, and adorable motherfucker,” he coos. Charlie snickers on and this is why Zayn only really interacts with three other people. People suck.

“Spit it out, Horan, before classes start,” he snaps.

Niall looks unfazed. “No, let me enjoy this. Zayn Malik, the smartest wizard of his age, doesn’t know something. This is just too good.”

“Blast-ended skrewts mate faster than this.”

“Let me have this,” Niall repeats.

The Great Hall starts to empty and he starts to panic. If he’s late for Transfiguration a second time, McGonagall will have his head and for once, he isn’t exaggerating. “Honestly,” he hisses and pulls away to pack his things. “This is why we won’t let you pull pranks with us. Your priorities in life center around Quidditch and random gossip stories.”

He protests. “Hey, there’s no way that Rebecca Thompson and Bill Weasley aren’t fucking. Their fighting over the Quidditch pitch is laced with all kinds of sexual tension.”

“Exactly,” Zayn snaps, because Niall just proved his point, and races away to Transfiguration. Running for the first time this school year, he gets there with a few seconds to spare and finds that his and Louis’ seats are both vacated. Another detention to add to Louis’ list. He vaguely wonders if Louis has broken some kind of “detention” record, but that thought is pushed out of his head once someone sits next to him.

No one sits next to Zayn. The seats next to Zayn should have signs on them that read “Louis’ Property” because that is a thing that is a _thing_. He turns to the brave lad that has broken the unspoken rules of Zouis in Hogwarts and is shocked to see the one and only: Liam Payne. Actually, he’s not sure who looks more shocked him or Liam. “Hello,” Liam whispers from the side of his mouth, eyes fixed on Professor McGonagall’s lecturing.

Zayn rolls his eyes and rips a large piece of parchment from his scroll. _What are you doing?_ he writes on the parchment and slides it to his neighbours seat. Note exchanging is a business in which he is very familiar. God, he needs to find new people to befriend.

He watches as Liam’s thick eyebrows shoot up in surprise. He fumbles for the parchment and scratches something quickly before returning it in the same manner. _Siting in class. Wat ru doing?_

There are rumours that float around Hogwarts like any other school. Except these rumours are often worse because they are spread via flying paper aeroplanes. Safety hazards. One of these rumours spread on a paper helicopter was that Liam Payne, the most studious student in the whole bloody school couldn’t spell to save Harry Potter’s life (the boy who lived, himself). Zayn had always waved this rumour away (literally) but now that he knows it to be true, he’s second guessing his doubts on that rumour over Gregory Pointer’s second mother being a toad.

He returns the note with the reply: _Don’t play games, Payne. Why are you sitting in Louis’ seat?_

Liam frowns a third time and Zayn faintly wonders if thirteen year olds can get frown lines in the span of a class hour. _Tomlinson isnt here. I didnt relise this wud be a problem._

 _Louis isn’t here, but I’m here._ He practically burns a hole in the parchment writing that response out.

Liam folds the note up and turns to Zayn shrugging his shoulders in a way that asks, “So what?” as if he didn’t declare his pure hatred towards Zayn’s best mate. He’s pretty certain there are some rules that require him to declare a duel to defend Louis’ honour or some rubbish like that, but Liam doesn’t look like a threat just sitting there and taking some probably horrendously spelled notes on transfiguring butterflies into buttons. Although it’s always the quiet ones that attack. Maybe keeping him close is a good thing. You know, to keep a better watch over him. So really he is doing Louis a favour by letting Liam sit by him.

By the end of the lecture, Zayn has absolutely no legible notes on what McGonagall had taught. Just a bunch of random scribblings, doodles of Liam’s weirdly thick lips, and a list of items he needs to pick up at Hogsmeade for pranks Louis and him planned earlier this week. Before he can pack up, however, Liam stops him with a hand to his arm. Zayn pulls away abruptly, surprised by the physical contact. Liam looks apologetic.

“I need you to tell Tomlinson something,” he starts and Zayn really couldn't care less.

“I’m not an owl,” he starts to protest, but then Liam’s stupid eyebrows pull together and his pretty brown eyes widen. “But I’ll make an exception this one time,” he begrudgingly adds.

Liam looks as though Christmas has come early. What a nerd. “Brilliant! I would tell him myself, but...it’s sort of a delicate topic?” Zayn nods in fake understanding and that seems to be enough for Liam to continue. “Basically, Tomlinson needs to leave Harry alone.”

What. “What?” he asks.

“I can’t really explain it because Harry promised me not to…? I’m not sure I’m even allowed to be talking to you about it. Just trust me on this, Tomlinson needs to back off,” Liam adds hesitantly. He fidgets where he’s standing, messing with the sleeve of his robes. If Zayn wasn’t about to implode with questions, the action might’ve seemed endearing and cute.

Okay, here’s the problem that Liam must have been overlooking in his little “tell Louis’ best mate to tell him” plan he had. The phrase, “Don’t shoot the messenger” is common for a reason. He runs a hand down his face and groans into it. “Payne,” he starts. “I can’t tell Lou that.”

Liam blinks and bites his lower lip and Zayn pauses in his inner turmoil to appreciate the little action. He also takes the time to ponder how often Liam does that when he’s nervous. “What do you mean?” he asks out loud.

“I don’t want to die young,” Zayn sniffs.

Liam tilts his chin up. “You’re not physically stopping him, just warning him. For me. Actually it benefits everyone in the school.”

“If it’s so important, why can’t you do it yourself?” He knows the answer to this question, but he needs Liam to say it outloud.

Liam slams his hand on the surface of their desk. The sound echoes in the little more than empty classroom. This confrontation will no doubt be scribbled on a paper aeroplane for the school to read during dinner tonight. “He won’t listen to me!” Liam whisper-shouts and, yes, that is a thing.

“Not my problem,” Zayn concludes and yanks his satchel from the stone floor. He piles his books and quills in before turning back to the fuming fellow-Gryffindor.

Liam looks as though he will vomit in the near future. “But he hates me,” he whimpers.

Zayn blinks and remembers their sorting and suddenly, the boy doesn’t looks so adorable anymore. In fact, he disgusts Zayn. “Bugger off, its not my fault you don’t have the guts to talk to him,” he snaps and storms away hoping that Liam gets his message and doesn’t follow.

There’s no hope for humanity, because Liam does follow. “This isn’t about me, though. It’s about Harry,” he argues.

That could be the least convincing thing that Liam could have ever said. “I don’t care about Harry Fucking Styles, Payne.” Now that Zayn thinks of it, the only less convincing thing would be mentioning his father. Harry Styles is one notch above his father. A fraction of a notch, but a notch nevertheless.

“I care about Harry,” Liam announces, grabbing Zayn’s sleeve to stop him from hopping onto one of the already moving staircases to get away.

Fine, it’s going to be like that. Zayn turns on him and glares. Liam shrinks similar to how Niall and Charlie shrank back earlier this morning. Simpler times. “Congratulations, would you like a medal celebrating the fact that you care about your best mate. Good on you, you aren’t completely evil.”

Liam blinks a few times before huffing. He replies in a cool tone of voice, “Look, think of it this way: I care about Harry, you care about Louis. Telling Louis to leave Harry alone will be beneficial for both of them.”

Louis. Did Liam Payne just say ‘Louis’? The shock of that numbs his head and empties it of appropriate responses (such as: “Fuck off, Louis is in love with the lad. How is breaking his heart  beneficial?”). “Erm, okay,” he does happen to get out and Liam skips away smiling to himself.

Oh god, what has he agreed to?

 

★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★ L ★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★

 

“Sparkles! You can’t infiltrate the Slytherin common room unless you have a bucket of sparkles with you. I learned that mistake the hard way,” he explains, dumping himself next to Zayn at their spot on the table. There are several vacated seats around their spot placing them in isolation. He’s only started ten food fights. He doesn’t know why they’re suddenly afraid he’s going to throw mashed potatoes on their robes.

Zayn is looking blankly at his pile of vegetables on his plate. There are several things wrong with this picture. Mostly the fact that he got vegetables in the first place. Louis has never seen Zayn eat vegetables. “Are you alright?” he asks hesitantly. This isn’t a thing they do Thursday nights. Conversations about feelings are saved for Monday nights when they’re procrastinating revisions and other school work.

Zayn blinks up at him and starts hyperventilating. Okay. “Did you get another letter from your father?” he bends over and whispers. Zayn hasn’t received a letter from his family (other than a box of biscuits from his mum here and there) since first year. He was supposed to be sorted into Slytherin, not Gryffindor. Louis’ heart aches a little remembering the reasoning behind Zayn’s sortment into the same house as him. Eleven year old Zayn was a ferociously loyal lad. Not much has changed.

Speaking of unchanging circumstances, Zayn still appears to be catatonic. “Okay, so are we playing a guessing game?” he asks, but chugs along without a response. “You ran out of hair gel?” No response. “You accidently ran into that ghost on the second floor’s girls’ lavatory?” Nothing. “Hagrid gave you one of his tea cakes?” Nada. “Dumbledore told you that story about the trumpet and the mallard?” Not even a blink. That story scarred Louis for quite a few weeks. He still can’t quite look at Professor Flitwick. “What, did Niall tell you about his ‘Ziam’ theory because I think it’s a little far-fetched. Even for you. I mean, Payne’s not even your type.”

A squeak. “Oh so Niall did bring it up?”

“Why do you keep saying my name like it’s an expletive, Lou? My hair looks amazing.” Niall slips into the seat on the bench across the table. Louis waves at him, but pouts remembering his practical joke gone wrong. Most people don’t like purple hair. Well, there is that girl, Perrie Edwards, in Hufflepuff that dyed hers a bright pink, but her mother is a hair dresser. She also had pink hair at one point.

He ignores his question. “Niall, what did I tell you about shipping people? They don’t like it.”

“Come off it, you love ‘Larry Stylinson’.” Niall winks and Louis can’t argue with that point. It’s a damn good name. Harry will agree when they're finally best mates. “But are you talking about Zayn,  because I haven’t even told him about that yet. Was saving it for later.”

“Well something happened with Payne,” another squeak from his silent best mate. “Because his hair looks excellent today and exams aren’t for months so it’s neither of those things,” he concludes, grabbing chicken from the center of the table before it disappears and slapping it down on his empty plate. Niall does the same but in a contemplating manner.

“Do you think Liam finally got his act together and asked our fair Zayn out to Hogsmeade?” he asks with a dreamy expression on his face. Louis slaps his arm.

“You’re doing it again,” he groans.

Niall frowns. “Doing what?”

“Picturing them doing the ‘naked horizontal dance’,” he complains and pushes his dinner away. There goes his appetite.

“Sex is healthy. People have sex. That’s a thing that happens.”

Louis grabs the nearest thing to his hand (which happens to be a fork) and throws it at Niall’s head. “Normal people don’t imagine their friends having sex with their mortal enemies!” he yells. They get the attention of several students and Louis’ chest lifts in hope.

People say he’s an attention-seeker, but he really couldn’t care less about the number of looks he gets when he does something note-worthy. He only cares about one look. And that look never looks at him. Chancing a glance at the Hufflepuff table for a head of curls, he sees that, indeed, the head is pointing distinctly down at the table and not at him and his sudden outburst. The hope dies in his chest instantly. His investment in this conversation dies with it.

Niall flushes but the smile never leaves his face. He leans in smugly. “You wouldn’t know that. The second year girls get pretty intense about this sort of thing. They even write stories about it.”

“Whatever,” Louis mutters back, because, yes, this conversation will come up later and when it does, he won’t be feeling this stupid disappointed feeling. He’ll fight for normalcy when that time comes.

Zayn slowly comes back to earth and actually whispers, “What’s Ziam?”

Niall gives Louis a “told you so” look that Louis promptly ignores. “You’re alive! What happened?” he demands of Zayn.

Zayn looks like a kicked puppy. He’s avoiding Louis’ eye and it’s all quite a bit unnerving. “Nothing. You missed Transfiguration.”

“I told you, I had to get sparkly glitter for our escapade tonight. There’s importance in this venture, Zayn, and I will not mess it up over something as silly as sparkles.” Zayn just nods along in a distracted way and that really won’t do.

“Are you going to tell me what happened with Payne or will I have to go to the bloke himself?” he complains and watches Zayn’s eyes widen in horror.

“Nothing happened with L--erm--Payne. Why do you think something happened with him?” he squeaks. Ah yes, this is where Louis has chosen to leave his affections. Zayn Malik who can’t lie for all it’s worth. How do they get away with all the rubbish they pull? That’s a valid question. He’ll have to ask a Professor after they’ve graduated.

Louis nods and claps his mate’s back. “Okay, I’ll just ask him about it later then.”

“What? No, nothing happened,” Zayn repeats and this is really reaching a new level of pathetic.

He decides to let him off the hook because he needs Zayn’s fullest attention if they’re going to sneak into the Slytherin’s dungeons without getting caught. There’s a reason they don’t ever let Niall tag along and this would be that reason. “Okay, okay. Calm down, I’m just giving you a hard time,” he tells Zayn.

Zayn visibly relaxes and looks down at his plate. “Why do I have green beans piled on my plate?” God help Zayn Malik.

***

They wait until midnight to descend from their dormitories into the common room to sneak out. Something they weren’t expecting comes in the form of Payne sleeping on one of the bright red couches by the fire. The instant he sees him, Louis’ blood boils and he has to take several calming breaths before tiptoeing forward toward the portrait hole. Zayn takes the method of crashing on his face in the middle of the common room. Its almost as if their years of sneaking out have been lost on him. Such a waste.

Liam’s snores stop suddenly and Zayn wiggles on the ground in his panic. Louis has to jump down on the floor and physically hold him until he stops his loud fidgeting. “Would you stop that, you’ll wake up the whole castle,” he whispers to Zayn.

Zayn whimpers and falls slack. Once he thinks they have a good shot at making it, Louis nudges him and the two crawl slowly to the portrait hole. It looks more dignified than it sounds. Actually, no. There is nothing remotely dignifying about how they crawled on their hands and knees to the portrait hole. Louis blames Zayn.

“What are you two doing?” a voice stops them in their tracks. Liam is speaking at a normal level, but the contrast of his voice against the still night is like a banshee crying in a forest. It’s not pretty. Louis looks up to see Liam watching them warily with a curious expression. “Are you two crawling on the floor? What time is it?” He stands up and looks at the battered watch in his pocket. “Midnight?!”

“Now calm down, Payne,” Louis starts, but Liam doesn’t even give him a chance to explain.

“You two are going to lose us a lot of points! Are you insane? Dyeing Niall’s hair already put us behind Ravenclaw last week,” he states angrily, his voice still muddled with the effects of sleep. Zayn seems to break out of his petrified state on the floor and just glares the living daylights out of the lad. Louis has always been impressed by Zayn’s ability to scare people with just a glance. That’s the reason why he prefers being his friend over his enemy. Although he’s found he gets more glares now as his best mate than anyone else gets so those plans were buggered.

“Liam God-Damn Payne get your head out of your arse!” Zayn shouts and oh lord this is not going to end well. Maybe Louis should sneak back up to the dorms before McGonagall catches them. Nah, Zayn would never forgive him and he quite likes the Bradford lad.

Liam winces, but holds his ground. Impressive. Zayn continues, “Are your priorities really this fucked up? Are you personally getting the house cup at the end of the year or is Dumbledore baking you a special pie because I literally can’t think of any other reason for you to be getting upset over a _points system that doesn’t even matter_!” His face is getting red. Come to think of it, Louis has never seen Zayn this angry before. Perhaps he should help. Yes, best mates help at times like this or something.

“Zayn…” he whispers in the least patronising way possible. Zayn’s glare suggests that he did not succeed. “Erm, how about we all go to bed?”

“I’m not upset over the _perfectly reasonable point system_. You two are breaking the rules!” Liam yells back completely disregarding Louis’ advisement which is okay. He wasn’t really trying that hard in the first place.

Zayn points at the portrait hole and...this is going to end worse than he had originally thought. “Really? Prove it. If you don’t care you’ll stay here and tell McGonagall who will take points away no matter what. If you care, you’ll come with us so that we don’t get caught, keeping your precious points intact.”

The visible confliction on Liam’s face is comical and Louis laughs. Liam glowers at him. “I’m coming and not because of the _brilliant point system_ , but because you two are going to get hung up by your toes by Filch and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

“Are we stopping by the Hufflepuff’s common rooms for Harry too or do you think we have enough people?” Louis remarks dryly. Zayn dutifully ignores him. This is what his life has come to.

Liam, however, look frustratingly flustered and frowns at Zayn. “You didn’t tell him,” he accuses and what.

_What._

“Tell me what exactly?!”

Zayn starts fidgeting again and, oh shit, something is going on. “Nothing, Lou. Let’s go before Peeves gets to that corridor we need to go down, eh?” Zayn stammers and gets up off the ground, dusting himself like the betrayer he is. Louis hates being left in the dark.

Louis grabs his wrist before he can even take a step to get out. “Tell. Me. What. Exactly,” he repeats with clear annoyance. Zayn freezes up again, but Liam takes charge.

“Are we going to go or what?” he snaps, casting glances at Zayn. Interesting. Well, at least Zayn’s betraying him with his mortal enemy. Marvelous.

Louis hands Liam the bucket of glitter and stomps out not waiting to see if they’re following.

They get through most of the castle without too much trouble (barely dodging Peeves who was, in fact, in the Charms corridor). Although Liam’s and Zayn’s whispered arguing has made him question whether it’s him Liam hates or Zayn, because he hasn’t acknowledged Louis being there once. Well, other than the horrified noise he made when Louis nudged him into the broken step that swallowed his foot up. That was for comical purposes though, not mortal enemy purposes.

When they finally reach the dungeons, Louis has physically removed them from arms length of each other and is telling stories so they don’t have the opportunity to argue. They manage anyhow. “So we’re here,” Liam grunts. “What now?”

Zayn blinks and looks at Louis. “How’d you get in?”

Ah yes. Simple. Louis walks up to the snake on the bricked wall and says, “Hawkspokes.” The wall opens up at once.

“That’s it?” Zayn whispers as they go in.

Louis tries to keep the smirk off his face. “I heard somewhere that you need the password to get into different common rooms,” he remarks lightly and yanks the bucket of glitter off of Liam. Liam hands it over in a daze. “Let’s just say getting the password to a house outside your own is a loophole in the system,” he adds and pulls his wand out.

Zayn pulls his own out and looks around like he’s discovered the secrets of the world. How flattering. Liam just stands and watches them perform charms. How unhelpful. Zayn and him send the glitter to stick permanently on the walls and dark emerald couches, then they mutter incantations they learned for this particular prank that will make the glitter stick to the person/people of their choosing. Liam only moves once they’re finished. “Are we under the lake?” he asks no one in particular.

Louis decides to answer him because he is a wonderful member of society. “Yes.”

“Okay,” is his brilliant response. Why the professors love him so much is beyond Louis. He can’t even spell and, yes, he knows this because he’s the one that made the paper aeroplane. Science.

“We just have to give little Parky-Warky his cuddly friend,” Louis announces and ditches them for the dorms. They’re set-up similarly to Gryffindor’s, only the stairs go down instead of up. The third landing is where he finds Tom Parker’s dorm and he hangs the teddy bear in a threatening fashion on the threshold. Hey, the guy had it coming. Trust him. Parker isn’t very nice, especially to the poor firsties who barely understand what’s going on.

Not everyone in Slytherin is bad, but there are several groups that are off putting. But he doesn’t necessarily “have a vendetta” against them. He would have glittered Ravenclaw’s common room given the opportunity, but he really doesn’t want to spend the whole night trying to figure out a riddle. Really, they have the best protection of the castle. He’s always thankful that Harry had been put in Hufflepuff. He can always get their password with a few pumpkin pastries given to the right people. The Slytherin’s password, in contrast, was harder to get and Louis shivers at the thought of how much extra revising he’ll have to do for a little while. God, it’s almost not worth it. Almost.

He climbs back the staircase to find a chaotic scene. Liam and Zayn are on opposite sides of the common room, both red faced and panting like they ran a marathon. Liam is staring resolutely at the floor and Zayn is glaring at a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. “What happened?” Louis asks warily because he could have guessed that something like this was going to happen. He envisioned more blood and violence. No one answers.

Figures.

He just turns to the wall they came in through and pushes it until it opens and lets him out. The journey back is actually quiet and peaceful. He contemplates a few poems his grandfather sent him by owl over the past few months. He’s grown more and more fascinated by lyrical verses like poetry after coming to Hogwarts and having that hat sing at them. While everyone else towered in terror, he smiled in appreciation of the clothing’s hard work.

“You kissed me,” Zayn states out loud and Louis stops walking. What.

“What?” he asks.

“Liam kissed me,” Zayn says again in such a way that it seems like he’s questioning whether it actually happened or not.

“What?” Louis repeats to himself.

Liam walks faster, almost running, to the Gryffindor tower. They let him leave. Zayn is too out of it to notice his absence anyway. “He yelled at me for not telling you and then just grabbed me and kissed me,” he says again in that dead-like voice.

Okay, Louis is a good friend. Louis is a great friend. He remembers Zayn’s birthday and sends his mother letters about his well-being so that she doesn’t worry. When his father started hitting him and Zayn was too ashamed to tell anyone, Louis was the one that kidnapped him and made him stay at his house until things were sorted. Yes, people would be lucky to be Louis’ friend, but at this moment, Louis has a problem. He can’t get over that one part of Zayn’s statement even though he knows (yes, he knows), that he should focus on the whole “Zayn was just kissed by Liam out of nowhere” part of this thing. But he can’t. In his defense, Louis is also in shock that Liam kissed Zayn and can’t quite put his head around it.

“What do you have to tell me?” he demands, because not everyone is a perfect friend. Least of all Louis. He does reflect for a split-second that maybe he should drop it, but he can’t. Not when the thought is put in his head.

Zombie Zayn does not hesitate to answer, staring right at the stone tiles looking as though he hopes they’ll open up and engulf him into a black abyss. “Liam wanted me to warn you to stay away from Styles. Something about it being beneficial to the whole school,” he mutters and then proceeds to sink to the ground in a personal Zayn-ball.

“Payne has been telling me to stay away from Harry since the first second I saw him. Well, maybe he didn’t _tell_ me then, but he sure looked like he was seconds away from pushing me off the nearest cliff,” Louis says and shrugs, willing the sinking feeling in his chest to go away. What’s so wrong with being friends with the lad? This has all be blown out of proportion.

Zayn blinks a few times. “No, it isn’t about Payne,” his voice cracks here and he trails off, staring at the wall and repeating a mantra of _hekissedmehekissedmehekissedme_.

Finally, Louis gets his act together watching his mate rock back and forth in his ball on the floor. He chastises himself for being so selfish and bends down to pick him up. They don’t speak the rest of the walk to the tower and Louis forces Zayn to cuddle with him in his bed for the rest of the night. He falls asleep stroking Zayn’s hair and wondering why it is that he can’t seem to get over Harry Styles. “Maybe,” his last thoughts are, “Just maybe, he doesn’t want to be Styles’ friend at all.”

***

Zayn skips out on school the next day and Louis really doesn’t blame him. He woke up this morning to the sounds of Zayn reorganising their dormitory by throwing everyone’s shoes into a pile on top of his bed. When asked gently what he was doing by fellow third year, Ed Sheeran, Zayn started yelling things about nargles. Suffice to say they all let him be, quietly agreeing with each other that they won’t discuss it to anyone else. That’s one thing that Louis has definitely appreciated about the Gryffindor House so far, they’re all rather loyal and won’t embarrass each other just for the entertainment of it.

He sat next to Niall and Charlie today just for something to keep his mind off this every growing discomfort he feels. If he doesn’t want Harry Styles to be his friend, why does he always feel himself seeking the Hufflepuff out?

"Louis," Charlie interrupts his thoughts about Harry's rosy cheeks. "Don't you think Niall would be an excellent beater?" he asks him, begging Louis with a panicked expression.

"I thought the Gryffindor team already had their auditions," he says instead of agreeing with Charlie, because he's a bit wary of these arguments. The truth is, Niall is a fantastic beater. If only Niall would get over his obsession with the keeper position.

Niall rolls his eyes and Charlie looks like he's ready to bolt. "And that bloody Scottish man beat me out for keeper. That was a biased try-out anyways, Lou. It's obvious him and Bill are good mates," Niall spits and points down the Gryffindor table where Bill Weasley is sitting with his group of friends. The Gryffindor keeper, Robbie, is seated several seats away in his own group. He's hunched over his breakfast, barely interacting with anyone else.

Louis states, "Inseparable," with as much sarcasm as possible.

Niall nods enthusiastically, elbowing Charlie and waving his arms around like a maniac. "Exactly! The try-outs were rigged!"

"Had nothing to do with the fact that you couldn't stop one of the quaffles thrown at you," Charlie says and Louis vaguely wonders if the lad has a death wish.

As if on cue, Niall whacks him on the back of his head with his fork. "I won't have such blasphemy uttered in my presence. Begone!"

Charlie strokes his head and leaves with a few parting words ("Bloody Irishmen and their Quidditch."). The post comes shortly after his departure. Two well-kept owls land on top of Louis' eggs and one battered barn owl lands on top his Niall's head. Niall falls over in his attempts to swat his family owl away while Louis stores Zayn's mother's box of biscuits delivered by the spotted-black owl and opens a parcel from his own family. Quite a few letters from his mum and sisters fall in a pile on the ground, but Louis ignores them in favour of opening the rather small letter from his grandfather.

A few verses of poetry line the top of the letter. A Dickenson poem that has him smiling:

_"Hope" is the thing with feathers—_  
 _That perches in the soul—_  
 _And sings the tune without the words—_  
 _And never stops—at all—_  
  
 _And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—_  
 _And sore must be the storm—_  
 _That could abash the little Bird_  
 _That kept so many warm—_  
  
 _I've heard it in the chillest land—_  
 _And on the strangest Sea—_  
 _Yet, never, in Extremity,_  
 _It asked a crumb—of Me._

Following the poem are a few words from his grandfather:

_Lou,_

_Your mother is upset by your lack of correspondence with her over your summer plans. Honestly, just write the poor woman a letter or two. It's the least you can do after suddenly moving your friend in last summer. He's lovely, Lou, but perhaps give your mother a few more weeks notice? You never did explain the lad's bruising._

_Alas, your last letter did little in soothing your grandmother about your education. However, I am incredibly proud of your accomplishments in such a short time. How, exactly, did you manage to get into the Hufflepuff common rooms? Where did you get the kittens that you used to flood the third year boy's dorms? How did you think of the whole thing in the first place? Your mother isn't amused by the whole scheme, but I am thoroughly proud. How I managed to get such a clever little grandson is beyond my understanding._

_Finally, I have received word from Minister Fudge and fellow-auror Alastor Moody that our deatheater search party will be moved to Austria. I shouldn't be gone long, but I won't be receiving any of yours (or anyone's for that matter) letters._

_Write anyways,_

_Your Biggest Fan_

Louis places the letter back into its envelope after greedily reading the words. He never did explain much to his granddad about Zayn's family or much of anything in Hogwarts. He just informs him about his latest pranks because he knows it'll give the old man something to chuckle over. Recently he's noticed that his granddad has been working long and hard to take something of a cult group to Azkaban.

It's simple, really. Or that is what his mum tells him. The group was formed by a man with no name, or "He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named" as his grandmother refers to him. Louis isn't entirely certain what happened because no one talks about it freely. From what he does know, the man was a elitist that hated muggles and killed a bunch of people. He had a group of followers that ran away the moment the man was killed (by a baby boy that everyone refers to as "the Boy Who Lived." The one person who survived the killing curse.). It's his grandfather's job to go after the group of followers and bring them to justice.

In the mean time, his and his grandfather's communication has been solely letters every few months or so. Still, his grandfather is a very important person in Louis' life and Louis refuses to let their relationship strain over the effects of a wizarding war. In fact, it's these thoughts that have him pulling a parchment and quill out of his satchel. He writes to tell his grandfather about the life he's been holding back from him.  About the boy he met with the bright green eyes that folds in on himself whenever he thinks no one is looking. The boy that writes diligently in a worn-out journal and smiles every morning when a school owl lands in front of him with a small-looking letter.

Louis tries to describe how this boy's laughter is the best sound in the world. How it seems to fill his whole body until tears are streaming down his face. He writes about how this boy still gets this surprised look on his face whenever the herbology professor introduces a new plant. How the boy struggles with his wandwork and has to study harder than every other student. Louis writes paragraphs about the boy's different smiles and by the time he is through Louis feels like vomiting.

The Great Hall has long been emptied by this time. A few house elves are popping in and out, cleaning and chatting amongst themselves. One or two spare him a second glance, but none move to ask him to leave. This isn't the first time Louis has been somewhere he isn't supposed to be. The buzzing silence of the Hall is fitting for his realisation, looking on the pages he wrote about a certain boy. The nauseous feeling leaves his stomach after a while and a new wave of emotion sharpens his senses. Acceptance with a hint of determination.

Louis Tomlinson doesn't do anything by halves. He doesn't sort of fancy Harry Styles. He has fallen irrevocably and completely in love with him. He tells his grandfather this, folds the lengthy letter up, and packs his things.

Charms class seems like such a downer after making such a life-changing discovery.

***

Niall isn't the least bit surprised when Louis tells him during potions later that afternoon.  "The fuck were you thinking everyday when you stare at the back of his head? Oh, I _really_ want this bloke to be my friend so that I can admire his legs without seeming like a pervert," he mimics Louis' high-pitched voice and Louis may or may not purposely sneak a few more powdered herbs in Niall's cauldron.

His potion explodes and class ends early.

***

Liam approaches Louis on his way to tell Zayn, because Zayn will be a hell of a lot more understanding than certain lilac-haired Irishmen. "Tomlinson," he grunts at Louis.  Louis rolls his eyes and hitches his bag higher on his shoulder for something to do with his hands.

"Payne," he replies begrudgingly. He hates these cliched meetings.

"I erm, well, there's something I have to tell you about Harry," he starts and god, Louis does not have time for this.

He pushes past him huffing out, "I know, I know. I need to _stay away_  from him. Could you be anymore dramatic? Don't answer that, I don't even want to know what you deem to be 'dramatic'."

Liam tries to stop him. "You _really_ don't understand."

Louis pauses for a second and then continues marching away. "Explain it to me," he calls back to Liam. Liam scrambles to follow, tripping over his robes and nearly running into a fifth year that curses him out.

"Well, Harry made me promise not to tell anyone--"

"Then why are you telling me," he interrupts with clear annoyance. A ghost passes by and waves at Louis.

Liam is basically panting. That boy is really out of shape. "Because it's important," he wheezes.

Louis does stop at this and Liam runs into his back. "I hope to Merlin you aren't the one deeming the importance of this warning, because you have a fucked up view on life," he hisses. Liam looks away, red-faced and terrified.

"I didn't mean to kiss him," he whispers.

"Oh, really. Your lips happened to walk off your face and onto my best mate's? That’s ridiculous. Even for you." Another ghost floats by and waves at Louis.

Liam does look guilty, Louis will give him that. "I don't know what happened," he whimpers.

"Well figure it out or leave us alone. You're the last thing he needs to worry about."

"'Leave us alone,' that's rich coming from you. Honestly, you seek Harry out and bug him! I've been asking you--"

"Asking me, eh? Is that what that was last year in Transfiguration?!"

"You were throwing notes at the back of his head! I can't believe--" he cuts himself off and runs a hand slowly down his own face. "Fine, whatever, it's in the past. I'll leave Zayn alone just, for the love of Godric, leave Harry alone," he pleads and falls on his knees in front of him. "Please," he adds and, fuck, what the hell has this world come to? Liam Payne on his knees in front of Louis Tomlinson? The school will go into hysteria.

"He really hates me that much?" Louis asks, eyes dropping to the floor. That's just, well, that is something he tries not to think about. The reason why Harry Styles doesn't care to give him attention.

Liam blinks. "Hate you? No, he doesn't--at least I don't _think_ he does, he hasn't really--"

"Fine," he interrupts.

"What? Really?" Liam sputters with a comically surprised expression firm on his face. This is getting ridiculous.

"Whatever," Louis mutters and turns on his heel. He leaves with the echoes of Liam's surprised laughter following.

***

He lasts about a week. Well, okay he lasts three days, but who's really counting. The post has come and Louis looked up to see Harry's delightfully surprised smile as though he doesn't get a letter every day. But he does and Louis is so overwhelmingly endeared by the scene.

His legs move without his realising and soon he’s at the Hufflepuff table with everyone staring on, waiting for Louis Tomlinson to do something remarkable that they can talk about for the rest of the day. He catches a glimpse of Liam staring at him from where he is seated next to Harry with the look of pure horror on his face. At the silence of the Great Hall, Harry slowly raises his eyes and they widen in surprise when he notices Louis fidgeting across the table from where he’s sitting. Then he cringes and drops under the table. That’s a first.         

“Erm,” he stammers confusedly, not sure what to do now.

Well, let it be known that Louis does well under pressure, because he finds himself climbing on top the Hufflepuff table and following the trail of student’s surprised shouts, scrambling their legs out from underneath the table. He follows Harry about two-thirds down, laughter and outrageous cheering following their antics, until Harry’s head finally pops out from underneath the table. He looks defeated and Louis is covered in all sorts of breakfast foods.

“Harry Styles,” he says with a beam, looking down at the boy who has captured his heart. Harry squeaks and starts to shake, folding into himself. The idea strikes Louis suddenly and he practically blurts, “Will you go to Hogsmeade with me?”

Hogsmeade is located directly outside of Hogwarts. It’s a small town that thrives on local commerce. Students who are in their third and older get to visit the town for a whole day once a month. It’s a good time to stock up on sweets and butterbeer. An even better time to stock up on pranking items, but Louis can put aside his practical jokes for the greater good. This is definitely the greater good.

Most of the Hall is laughing at this point. The exception being Tom Parker and his group of friends at the Slytherin table who seem to be in a terrible mood (also covered in glitter). The laughter dies out with time as Louis tries to keep his smile on his face. Harry refuses to look at him or even acknowledge the invitation.

Ignoring the urge to jump off the nearest cliff, Louis repeats himself. Maybe he had missed it? “Erm, this next weekend?” he says a bit louder. Harry flinches and shakes harder. “Will you accompany me to Hogsmeade as my, erm, date?”

A very quiet voice, low and rough, comes from the huddled Harry Styles. “Sorry?” Louis asks because he couldn’t make out what the voice had said.

“No,” this time the voice is loud and clear. Harry trips on his robes as he stands up off the floor. There are tears streaming down his red face and his whole body is wracking in tremors. He trips on his robes as he attempts to leave.

Louis watches him as he tries to leave, the whole school deathly silent and burning stares into both his and Louis' backs. "Wait," he calls after him and jumps off the table. He slips on the marble floor due to the maple syrup dripping off his shoes. He gets up quickly and races after Harry's shuffling form. "Why?!" he yells.

Students are muttering and sending sympathetic looks his way but he really, really couldn't care less. A whole team of Dementors couldn't stop him from going after Harry Styles. He finally reaches the boy at the entrance of the Great Hall and pulls him to a stop. "Why?" he repeats a little more quietly.

Harry's shaking has taken a new form of violent tremors, his jaw is twitching, and his hands are buried in his own curls, tugging at them. Finally he pushes Louis away and in a very small and shakened voice explains, "You are the most selfish human being in this entire world."

The feeling in his chest that he's been trying to the ignore. The familiar rejection that he feels every day (yet somehow magnified a million times over once he finally receives Harry's attention and, in addition, his vocal rejection). A tugging that has morphed into a sharp clawing. He feels vomit crawling up his throat and he chokes it down with a few swallows. No, he will not vomit all over the love of his life. "Oh," he does let out.

He watches Harry turn and hasten to get away and that's when it happens. Harry mutters a barely audible "Sorry," to him and he's suddenly filled with hope.

It's like when he first got detention. He was devastated knowing that his grandfather would get word of it. So stricken with fear that he had just disappointed him, he spent the whole afternoon before the detention planning to run away. He asked Zayn whether he thought squirrels were friendly and Niall how to build a fire without magic. Then, he received a letter from him in the night minutes before the detention. After letting the owl into their dorms from where it was frantically tapping on their window, he read the reassurance in the letter. "No matter what mischief you get into, we will always love you."

That letter sent him on an entirely new path. He filled his boredom of being locked in a castle all day with pranks and practical jokes on his fellow students. He mapped out the castle of it's juicy secrets and memorised the corridors. He practically did everything he wanted and needed to do to feel less homesick knowing that the few detentions he got every week were just a minor consequence. He was determined to make his stay at the castle worthwhile. Every experience worth having requires a fight.

Harry Styles is worth a fight. Hell, Harry Styles is worth a million fights. "I'm not giving up," he tells Harry's departing figure. The figure stops abruptly and turns back to him. "I promise you, Harry Styles, that I will get you to fall in love with me like I've fallen in love with you," he states with a proud tilt to his chin. Behind them, several students start clapping that results in the whole school cheering.

The figure of Harry proceeds to hunch over and vomit all over the floor.

***

_"Louis Austin," the sharp voice of the middle-aged witch calls across the first years. No one responds. The witch looks at her thick scroll a second time. "Louis William Austin," she repeats, scanning the large group until he lands on a particularly small boy with disheveled brown hair and clever blue eyes. "Louis Austin," she says a third time looking directly at the boy that looks too much like his namesake._

_The boy blinks back his surprise at being singled out. He frowns and shouts back in an equally clear, but considerably higher voice, "That's not my name."_

_"What is your name?" she responds, losing her patience. They're wasting time. She wants the students in bed as soon as possible. The journey to Hogwarts is always rough on their students._

_"Louis Tomlinson," the boy responds with a tilt to his chin. Mcgonagall turns to Headmaster Dumbledore. He nods his head for her to proceed and she tells the boy, "All right, come along and get sorted then."_

_Another boy, bigger in stature with thick eyebrows and large, brown eyes looks very upset by the contention. "Austin?" he asks no one in particular. "Isn't that the name of the deatheater auror?"_

_McGonagall tries to restraint her urge to bark out detentions as the whole Hall fills with whisperings from the older students. Louis, who had been climbing to steps to her, stops dead in his tracks and pales considerably._

_Another first year student with darker hair and what appears to be a permanent smirk on his face agrees with the first. "Yeah, I read in the Daily Prophet that his own father-in-law chased him out of the country. The old man couldn't catch him," he snarls._

_Mcgonagall sniffs and beckons the boy forward to participate in his sorting. The boy turns away and looks across the group to another dark haired boy who has paused in his reading to watch the chaos erupting in the Hall. The boy glowers at the first bushy browed boy, "Oh what do you know, Payne?"_

_"He killed thousands of innocent muggles and mudbloods," the boy replies._

_Louis seems incredibly confused. "No, my dad left because he was a workaholic...?" he starts firmly but ends his statement in a question, eyes boring into his friend's._

_"Enough!" McGonagall yells across the students. Everyone quiets and she turns to the troubled Louis boy. "Let's get you sorted," she tells him._

_He meets her eyes and McGonagall sees a look in them that she hasn't seen in a long while. He shakes his head and looks back to his fellow students. "My father may have left when I was young, but he wasn't a bad man. My mum loved him," he tells them with a determination that has many students nodding their heads along._

_McGonagall looks back to Dumbledore to see him frown and tap his chin. The Payne boy scrambles for words, "Just because your mum loved him doesn't mean he wasn't evil."_

_"My mum would never love--"_

_"Boys," the powerful voice of Dumbledore finally stops the argument. Once he has their attention, he nods at McGonagall a second time."Let's not postpone our supper any longer," he tells them._

_Louis finally sits on the stool and is sorted in Gryffindor along with his friend and the Payne boy. His friend, who had climbed the stairs with a determined look on his face, walked to his seat looking scared and nervous. Louis comforted him. Yes, this is one student McGonagall will have to keep her eye on._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have warned you all after the prologue, but scheduled updates are nonexistent in my life. I'm an arse, I know. I'll say I'll update this every Wednesday and then you won't get an update one week, or get too many updates the next. Basically, I'll tell you now: THIS STORY ISN'T WORTH IT! Get out before you're sucked in!
> 
> Thanks for reading, loves. To complain about happenings in Syria (or maybe talk about 1D or something bizarre like that), comment here or send a message my way on my [tumblr](http://jacktheminiatureslayer.tumblr.com).


	3. TWO: or the One Where Niall Falls Off His Broom Continuously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam shows up in one scene; Zayn burns robes; Niall defends goalposts from sharks; Harry is mildly traumatised; and Louis creates his own army.
> 
> Or the one where bullying is a real problem at Hogwarts and Louis is going to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!
> 
> I want to take a second to direct all of your gazes to the new pairing added. If you're uncomfortable with it...eh, sorry.
> 
> ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND BULLYING. If you don't like that kind of stuff...eh, sorry.
> 
> I'm not going to really going to change it because it's my story and ya'll aren't paying me.
> 
> NOW THANKS FOR READING, LOVES!

The thing about Hogwarts is that there are only so many professors to look after students and there are quite a few students. So it comes to no surprise to Zayn when him and Louis find a crowd of older students grouped and cheering in a questionable manner. They push and shove at the crowd until they get to the center where a bigger girl in Ravenclaw blue robes is lying on the ground and sobbing into the tiles while students taunt her.

“Oink, oink, Proling. Why don’t you go back to the countryside where you belong?” An older Ravenclaw boy says and the others in the group laugh in approval.

Zayn watches as Louis’s whole face flushes in anger. He turns away from what he knows will be an explosive confrontation and kneels down in front of the girl. Her nose has been charmed to look like a pig’s and, god, some people are sick little fucks. The girl continues to cry as he wordlessly tries counter-charms on her face to no avail. Sick little fucks that actually paid attention in class or just got lucky. She’ll have to be taken to Pomfrey the head nurse in the hospital wing.

“Are you serious right now?” Louis demands and shoves at the Ravenclaw’s shoulders. The lad is from his house Quidditch team and has a couple years on Louis, but Zayn isn’t the least bit worried. If anything, he’s wary of how much detention Louis is going to get from this all. McGonagall hardly ever pauses anymore. Just hands the detentions out first and questions later. To be fair, he usually deserves them so the action is generally justifiable.

The bloke smirks because, well, he has a whole crowd of adolescent teens gathered around him. He has the majority and thinks he’s in the right. He’ll go down quickly.

Louis, in a skilled flick of his wrist, retrieves his wand from his robes and sends the lad flying across the corridor. No mutter of an incantation. Lous is too furious for that and Zayn watches the group disperse quickly soon afterward. Fourth years shouldn’t know nonverbal charms.

“Shouldn’t” has never stopped Tomlinson before.

He turns back to Zayn and the girl and Zayn answers his inquiring look. “Hospital wing.”

Louis cringes but helps Zayn lift the girl from the ground to carry her across the castle. The journey is fairly quick, but only because Zayn is so focused on comforting the girl loudly so that she doesn’t have to listen to the filthy curses Louis lets out that he misses most of the travel. Once they pass the threshold into the wing, Pomfrey takes over, moving like the wind to lift the girl from their tired arms.

“What happened?!” she demands at once and settles the girl on the nearest bed.

Zayn speaks before Louis goes off on a rant. “Some older students clearly haven’t taken a human biology course that would have taught them that this perfectly normal young lady is at a healthy weight level and body type. What we need now is a social justice class that would teach the morons that even if she wasn’t sporting a healthy body weight, it wouldn’t be any of their bloody business.”

And whoops. Pomfrey’s disapproving glare makes him realise that he, himself, went off on a rant. Louis nods along accordingly, fuming and furious looking. “What is your name?” Pomfrey asks the girl and sets to work on her nose.

“Darlene Proling,” the girl sniffs.

“Well, Miss Proling, I’m going to keep you here for the rest of the day. You’ve had quite the start,” Pomfrey states smartly and manages to shrink Darlene’s nose back to its original state. Shortly after, she demands Zayn and Louis keep an eye on Darlene while she goes off to find a calming potion.

As soon as she leaves, Zayn takes action and sits next to Darlene on the bed so that he can rub soothing circles on her back. Louis, too angry to stand still, paces the entire length of the room. Back and forth. Back and forth. “What year are you?” Zayn questions Darlene softly.

Darlene’s lip quivers. “F-f-first.”

Zayn’s own lip bends down in a disgust of the thought of this eleven year old being bullied, but he quickly rearranges his features as to not scare her anymore than she already has. “Has this been happening all year, love?” he questions further.

She chokes on a sob and nods her answer. He bends forward and lets her bury her tears into his neck and shoulder. “Hush, you’re okay now. You’re a beautiful and remarkable young woman, Darlene. Louis and I will take care of you now.”

Louis finally stops his pacing and kneels in front of Darlene, taking her hands and staring her directly in the tear-filled eyes. “Darlene Proling, I hope to Merlin that you don’t listen to anything those...f--fetching imbeciles said to you. They don’t care about you. At all. Not in the least bit. They don’t care if you were hurt or even if you were happy by the filth that spewed out of their mouths,” he pauses here and drops her hands in favour of clutching her face delicately in his hands. “People like that only care about one thing: control.”

Zayn faintly questions whether or not Louis should be trying to explain the basics of bullying to an eleven year old homesick girl, but he let’s it go when he sees the fire in Louis’s eyes. He clearly thinks this is important for her to understand.

“You aren’t the only one they have ever or will ever say hurtful things to, do you understand? It’s not you,” he states firmly, punctuating every word with his northern accent. He drops her face and leans forward, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. “It’s not you,” he repeats in a whisper.

She begins sobbing and clutches onto Louis’s robes. He holds her accordingly until she calms down, then he let’s her go to stand up to pace again. Still openly fuming. Zayn decides that they should probably leave as Flitwick and McGonagall come storming in. Flitwick flits over to Darlene, asking her the same questions as Zayn, adding a few more of his own, like the names of everyone so the right people get proper punishment.

McGonagall, however, levels a glare at Louis. “Tomlinson, how much longer do you have to torture me with your face after hours? I don’t enjoy staying up late for your detentions,” she sniffs with a very faint--microscopic--tilt to her stern lips.

When Louis doesn’t reply she rolls her eyes and states, “Two weeks worth of detention for sending O’Brien head first into the wall.” She stopped taking points off years ago when she discovered that Louis and Zayn don’t give a flying fuck over the points system.

However, detentions clearly don’t work either so Zayn wonders if she ever stays up at night wondering how, exactly, she’s going to punish Louis. The thought entertains him for a spit second until McGonagall catches his amused smile. “You too, Malik. I don’t suppose you encourage him, but you certain could have tried to restrain him.”

That’s a funny thought in itself, but he shrugs it off and watches as Louis walks out of the room with a brief. “Thank you,” to McGonagall. She flushes. Interesting. So, as Zayn follows, he spares her a wink and a quiet, “Always a pleasure,” to watch her cheeks darken even more. This is a new game that he fully supports. But that is clearly a topic to bring up another day, he thinks as he follows Louis across five different corridors and into an abandoned classroom.

Things go flying.

And by things, he means desks, chalk boards, manuals, the general miscellaneous articles that classrooms possess. All of it. It all goes flying, crashing and folding into each other midair as Louis throws them and literally rips the silent atmosphere a part with his yelling.

“ELEVEN YEARS OLD!”

A chair smashes against the wall. Zayn takes a step back to watch from against the closed door. He places his hands in his robe’s pockets while he’s at it. He expects to be here a while.

“ELEVEN!” Louis repeats and tips two different desks smashing to the floor. He doesn’t even use a wand, he’s so worked up.

He kicks a pile of books over and stomps on them like a child in a tantrum. “ _THEY TORMENTED AN ELEVEN YEAR OLD ABOUT HER WEIGHT!_ ”

Finally, after pushing a few more tables over, Louis succumbs to his tears and falls to his knees. He gives the floor a hard glare, tears streaming down his face. This is when Zayn walks over and sits himself next to him. “It sucks, mate,” he comments.

“Yeah,” Louis replies.

“But…what is this really about?” he asks.

Louis chuckles drily. “This,” he mocks, “is about a girl being emotionally abused by sixteen year olds.”

Zayn let’s him have that and nods. “Yes, but it’s more than that.”

“More than her questioning her own self-worth because a few lads wanted a laugh?”

Now this is just getting ridiculous. “Louis, yes, she was bullied. That happened. We can’t fix that, okay? All we can do now is be that girl’s friends because she sure as hell needs some, but we can’t go back and stop it.”

“There are things that--”

He cuts him off. “We are not going to the Ministry to fill out a shit load of paperwork for a time-turner. Like they’d really give one to a couple of students anyway.”

Louis huffs. “Fine! We won’t even try! Are you happy now? She’ll probably spend the rest of her life thinking her body is inadequate because society is based on impossible standards!”

“Are you really lashing out at me and society in the same breath?” Zayn remarks and that brings a smile to Louis’s lips. “I’m glad that you actually listen to me when I complain about our buggered up social roles in passing, really, I am, but that’s not really why you’re so upset right now.”

Zayn pities the floor because Louis’s staring, if possible, would have dug holes into the ground when he finally gives in. “It’s been nearly a year,” he whispers and the comment seems to take a great deal out of him. He sways a bit and Zayn catches him before he collapses onto the stone floor he was eye-murdering only seconds before.

His body spasms with sobs. “I haven’t heard from Granddad in a year!”

Well fuck, this is definitely and completely beyond Zayn. His family hates him. Well, the exception being his mother, but he wouldn’t be surprised if his name has been inked out of every and all family documents. A Malik being sorted into Gryffindor. He’s certainly a disgrace, he thinks with an eyeroll, but forgets himself when Louis cradles into his lap.

“I can’t lose him,” he whispers, nose against Zayn’s stomach as he clutches Zayn’s thighs.

He has to take a moment to mull it over, but it seems his carding his hand through Louis’s hair suffices for what words he can’t say. “Well...bollocks, I’m sorry, Lou. I’m so very sorry,” he does end up saying, on the verge of tears himself.

He has sort of been adopted into the Tomlinson family. He lives with them when they’re not at Hogwarts, but Louis’s grandfather has been chasing ex-deatheaters since before either of them were born. So his own relationship is based on a few conversations and what little stories Louis divulges to him. He is a very important person in Lou’s life. Very important.

“He is a very strong wizard, Lou. He probably has a good reason for not responding. Maybe he doesn’t want to give up some sort of hiding position? I don’t know how these things work.”

“Or a bloody deatheater killed him off,” Louis hisses.

And. Well. That’s very possible. But life should be lived thinking of positives. “Lou…” he warns.

“My father probably did it. I hear what they say about him,” he whispers next and god damn, this kid needs to really calm the fuck down.

“Aren’t you the one that told me that your father is in no way a deatheater?” Zayn demands.

“Yes, but I hardly know, do I? I’m just a bloody teenager that blinks wrongly and gets put in detention.”

Zayn laughs at that. “Oh right, McGonagall makes you scrub floors because you happen to look like your father that may or may not be a deatheater ex-auror. It has nothing to do with the fact that you managed to convince the kitchen house elves to serve scrambled eggs and only scrambled eggs for three solid non-breakfast meals in your first year. Or you blew up the owlery on purpose because you didn’t like the smell of owl dung. Or you somehow get into, and prank, the different houses in the castle. Nope. None of that. It all has everything to do with your mysterious father.”

“I detect a hint of sarcasm, Malik,” Louis sniffs and pulls himself off the ground to smile a watery smile at him. Zayn’s whole body warms up at it and he instantly smiles back.

“I wasn’t exactly hiding it, mate. Come along before lunch finishes and we have to go beg for leftover eggs from your friends in the kitchens.”

Louis chuckles and let’s himself get pulled up from the ground. They both take a cursory glance over the damage done on the room, but Louis shrugs and leaves Zayn to huff and flick his wand at it. He always has to do the cleaning-up part.

***

“Those fucking cunts,” Niall mutters murderously during charms and glares at the Ravenclaw side of the classroom. Which, okay Niall, the house contains hundreds of students. Statistically speaking, a few of them are going to be evil little twats, but that doesn’t mean the whole house is tainted.

“Just focus on enchanting the beatle,” Zayn tells him before elbowing him in the ribs.

Niall rubs his torso and glares some more before returning to the lesson at hand. “Lucky you and Lou got there. If I’d have known, I would have performed some unforgivables on those bloody morons.”

“To be fair, Louis sent O’Brien flying. He’s still in the hospital wing.” Where he will, no doubt, be scowled at by Pomfrey. Bless her.

Niall drops his beatle on the ground and it scurries away. Zayn frowns at the departing insect and stands up to retrieve another one from the front of the classroom. “O’Brien, the Ravenclaw seeker?! Do you know what this means??” Niall exclaims.

No, but Zayn has a feeling that he will be told. He pauses and waits expectantly.

“We’ll actually have a chance to have a re-match against the Hufflepuffs!” he does end up explaining with the added bonus of flailing arms.

Okay. “Okay,” Zayn replies and leaves him to grab the beatle. When he returns Niall looks like Zayn has stomped on his favourite sweets (pumpkin pastries). “What?” he asks.

Niall huffs some more but answers. “You’re the worst Gryffindor. We could actually get the Quidditch cup for the first time in several years, but, no, you don’t care. You’re probably thinking of what colour to dye my hair next.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We never pull the same prank twice,” Zayn snaps and thrusts the beatle in Niall’s pale, sweaty hands.

Niall isn’t having any of this. “Zaaayyynnnn, this is incredibly important!” he wails and sends the bug flying off from his hands a second time. This time it hits a fellow Gryffindor in the back of the head and the boy glares at them.

Zayn tries apologising for Niall’s clumsiness, but the quidditch-obsessed lad grabs onto his robes and heaves him right into his Irish face. “I’m doing this for your own good,” Niall tells him, potato-smelling breath blowing across Zayn’s face.

Then, Zayn is being pulled out of the classroom and down several floors. “Horan, the next time you beg me to be your Charms partner because ‘you really don’t understand what the difference between ‘augmenti’ and ‘augmanti’ has to do with the curriculum’, I’m going to laugh and walk away.”

“Cheers,” is the response he gets. Well. Whatever.

“At least tell me where you’re dragging me,” he grumbles.

Niall ignores him. Figures. They pass through the same corridor four times, run into five different ghosts, and have to hide behind a statue when they see Filch’s cat. Finally, after Zayn ponders whether or not he’ll get PTSD from this outing, they end up in a hall lined with trophies and all sorts of medals.

Ah, the hall that everyone strives to be in, but no one can seem to actually find. Of course they’re here.

“Behold,” Niall exclaims and throws his hands up. “Take it all in, Zaynie-poo, because I’m about to blow your mind.”

A blowjob joke would be inappropriate here, but Zayn smirks nonetheless. He gets smacked for it. “Clear your head, mofo. I’m about to divulge some serious shite.”

And now Zayn has an urge to point out the obvious toilet joke. He gets smacked a second time.

“Once upon a time, when everything was all right in this world,” Niall starts and pulls Zayn to the quidditch trophy section. “We Gryffindors ruled the pitch.”

Zayn looks at the date on the trophy that Niall’s finger points to. Huh. “You do realise that he-who-must-not-be-named was literally creating a student army during this time that would lead to a wizarding war?”

Another smack.

“The reason for this winning streak, of course, was the brilliance of the Gryffindor keeper!” he says loudly, ignoring Zayn’s remark.

Zayn takes a look at the other medals surrounding the trophies and frowns. “Really? Because it looks like this James Potter kid had some badass seeking skills.”

Another, much harder, smack.

“The keeper is a prized position on any Quidditch team. I am determined to obtain it.”

And, Zayn already knew this. He knew this within an hour of meeting Niall. Why was he dragged out of class to be told this. As though Niall is reading his thoughts, he gets smacked another time. “You, Zayn, will help me practice my keeping skills this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

“And if you don’t--wait, did you just agree? Just like that?”

Zayn shrugs. “It’s either that or watching Louis get rejected by Harry Fucking Styles a hundredth time. Personally, I’d rather get a bludger to the cranium.”

Niall nods. “That can be arranged! Let us retire to the fields to partake in the sacred game of Quidditch!”

And that’s how Zayn found himself lounging in the benches surrounding the quidditch pitch, reading a book, and watching Niall fall off his broom a fifth time. “Keep your elbows up!” he yells unhelpfully, because why would Niall really recruit him to help his quidditch? They’ve gotten in an argument over the rules too many times to keep track. Mostly, Zayn is curious as to why, if the snitch is worth so many bloody points, everyone doesn’t just go after it? It would save them a lot of time.

“Pretend as though you are being attacked by a shark!” he yells to Niall and watches Niall flail his arms spastically, managing to fall off the broom only seconds after getting on again. Zayn chuckles to himself. Quidditch is fun.

He turns the page in his book, waits for Niall to get back up to the goal posts, and comments. “No, don’t move around like that. The shark has the quaffle and is trying to make a goal. What do you do? Not that goal, the one to your left!”

Niall actually jumps off his broom in a haphazard attempt to protect the goalposts. Talk about dedication.

“Too slow, he made it in. Sorry, mate! Get back on your broom, quickly. A koala has the quaffle and is going for a goal!” Why Zayn is using animals instead of actual quidditch players is a good question that he asks himself.

Niall falls off his broom again. Zayn takes pity. “How about you take laps around the pitch? Try flying in such a way that you actually stay up for longer than five minutes.”

Niall does just that and Zayn really gets into the plot of his book. The girl is accusing the lad of being a vampire. What drama.

“Hey Zayn!”

He grunts.

“When did you know that you preferred blokes over birds?” Niall asks and Zayn places his book down next to him. Murmuring vampires can wait a second.

“It wasn’t a big discovery. It’s something that I’ve kind of always felt. Is there are particular reason for your inquiry?” he shouts back.

A pause. “No! A girl asked me the other day. She wants to write a realistic ‘Zouis’ story!”

There are plenty of those. Although he does prefer reading those ones where Louis and Zayn meet in an alternative universe. His favourite is one where they’re both teachers at a muggle school. He’s a bit of an arsonist in that one. “You know you can tell me anything, right?” Within reason, he adds in his head.

Another, longer pause. “Yeah, I know! How do you feel about daddy kink? Louis is really good at domming.”

“We both know that I’d be the dom.”

“Sure.”

“Niall, I’d fucking dominate Louis to the next century.”

“Uh-huh.”

Zayn huffs and returns to his book. He smiles when Niall falls and face plants into the ground, but frowns when Niall skips over and asks, “So which one of you came up with the idea to fill McGonagall’s office with lingerie and who went along willingly liked a whipped little puppy dog?”

Zayn grumbles, closes his book, gets up, and leaves Niall cackling behind him.

***

He’s on his way to dinner, figuring that Louis has finished with whatever stupidly cheesy attempt at wooing Styles he came up with today. On his way to the Great Hall, however, he runs into a whimpering Harry Styles curled up in a ball just underneath a staircase.

Why would Harry hide himself away underneath a staircase?

“Erm,” he mutters and looks around. The corridor is completely abandoned. Great. Okay. He slowly slides underneath the stairs and places a tentative hand on Styles’s back. The Hufflepuff is shaking, but digs himself back into Zayn’s hand.

Right.

“Er, are you okay?” he asks rather stupidly. Obviously the lad isn’t well. There’s a puddle of vomit next to him.

Styles chokes out another whimper and cuddles further into himself and Zayn’s hand.

Well. Fuck. Zayn gives him more of his arm and Styles takes it. Folding himself into the curve of his elbow, but continuing to rest his head on his own set of knees. The shaking dies down, which, okay, is enough of a motivation to just hold onto the boy, wrapping him up in both of his arms and resting his own head on Styles’s. Ignoring the fact that he does, indeed, actually hate Harry Fucking Styles.

“This has taken a turn,” Zayn tells himself, but smiles when Styles laughs underneath him. “I’m holding Harry Fucking Styles,” he adds just to say it out loud.

A quiet, low murmur answers him. “Well, I’m being held by Zayn Fucking Malik.”

Cheeky. “Fair point,” he remarks, but they both hold onto each other. Just a bit longer.

Harry let’s go first and wiggles out from under his arms, but Zayn pretends like he doesn’t want to grab onto him and cuddle him until he’s absolutely positive that the lad is a hundred percent better. Nope. Because he’s Harry Fucking Styles.

“Just got a bit overwhelmed,” Styles states and fidgets in his spot under Zayn’s curious gaze.

“And does that happen often?” he asks.

Styles doesn’t answer which is enough of an answer for Zayn, so he doesn’t push. Instead, he asks, “Where’s Payne?” and grabs his wand to clean up Styles’s puddle of sick. Carefully avoiding eye contact.

“Probably telling Tomlinson off,” Styles answers and wipes at his face with his hands.

And. Oh. He’s here because of Louis? “Did Lou hurt you?” he whispers and stares directly into the lad’s light green eyes. He already feels a sick churn to his stomach. No, he doesn’t think that Louis wouldn’t actually do anything to harm Harry Fucking Styles, but these questions have to be asked.

Louis has always been a bit funny when it comes to Styles.

Zayn let’s out a breath of held air when Styles shakes his head. “No, nothing like that. Like I said, sometimes I just get overwhelmed and--” he cuts off and stares resolutely at the floor.

This is about the time that Liam Payne finally shows up. Zayn scowls at him. “Harry, are you all right? He just had to sing to you in front of the whole bloody school!” Liam hisses, but pulls Styles up and into his arms.

Huh. Louis has been planning something big for a while. Zayn didn’t think he’d actually sing, but he wouldn’t put it above him. Him and Louis have marginally different definitions of romance. He winces when Liam takes notice of him and drops Styles almost instantly.

“Zayn? What are you doing here?”

You can’t really blame Zayn for taking the opportunity to inspect Liam, because the truth of the matter is that he’s being avoiding Liam just as harshly as Liam has been avoiding him. So. Yeah, he hadn’t noticed that Liam grew two sizes. Until now and, wow. Did someone curse him or something? How can a fourteen year old be so bulky?

“Just taking a stroll and decided to check up on my good mate, S--erm--Harry here,” Zayn replies in a stammer, getting up, and wiping his robes clean of the filth on the floor. Who knew the part underneath staircases could be so filthy?

“Oh...okay,” is Liam’s reply, but Zayn doesn’t pause to think of how nervous he sounds. Nope. He gets himself the fuck out of there.

Because he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to feel hurt all over again about the fact that that bloody boy kissed him and didn’t so much as grace him with a second look afterwards. No, because such thoughts were forced out of his head. Positives. One must always think of positives.

Which doesn’t include how soft Liam’s lips are or how gently he held onto Zayn’s face, because those aren’t positive thoughts. No way.

So Zayn ends up skipping dinner altogether and fleeing to his bed in the Gryffindor tower. He needs to rearrange their dormitories anyway. Nargles are tricky creatures.

★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★L★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★⋰⋱★

Louis found out weeks ago through a younger Slytherin that Davis had been threatening. Luckily, the Slytherin second year was smart enough to tell both the professors and Louis, divulging even more information to Louis including a certain Slytherin House password so that he can take action into his own hands.

This is something that Louis is actually good at.

So he sits in the fourth year boy’s dormitories and waits for his former mate. Nothing is more sickening than extreme purists that feel like thrusting their values on everyone else.

The short, black haired boy walks into his dorm and pauses when he sees Louis.

“Ah, Davis. We--”

“What the bloody hell are you doing here, Tomlinson?” Davis cuts off his practised speech and. Well. That won’t do.

“Ah, Davis. We meet again!” he repeats, firmly. “Take a seat,” he adds and points his chin at one of the beds.

Davis rolls his eyes. “I’m pretty sure that you aren’t allowed to be here unless you were re-sorted within the last hour.”

“Got better at my maths,” Louis replies easily. “Now sit before I make you sit.”

Davis goes to sit and pouts childishly. “What’s this about then?”

And that’s enough of that. Louis has been planning this confrontation out for like, two whole hours. He will not be having any more unwanted interruptions. He ignores Davis’s question and leans back in his conjured armchair.

“I have an acquired set of talents--”

Davis snorts.

“Talents that I have learned over the years--”

“Dyeing someone’s hair purple isn’t a talent.”

Jesus fucking Christ. “It was lilac you uncultured buffoon. Now, stop interrupting me!”

“Look, Tomlinson. This is cute. This is really, truly adorable, but I’m a busy man. I have things to do. Friends to please.”

Right. Louis fast forwards his speech in his head. “I’ll just get to the good part then,” he replies casually and produces a fluffy and worn-out teddy bear from his satchel. Similar to Parker’s only this one is well used. Abundantly used to the point where Louis wrinkles his nose at the questionable stains all across the bear’s body.

Davis watches as Louis raises a wand threateningly at the bear. “Mr. Cuddlebottom has become accustomed to the lifestyle he lives with me. Don’t make this any harder on him, Davey-boy.”

He has the audacity to laugh. “You stole my teddy bear? What are you, twelve?!”

With a flick of his wand, one of the bear’s ears falls off and Davis cringes. “Like I actually care,” he deliberately huffs and looks away.

“Such a shame.” Another ear falls to the floor.

“It’s a child’s toy anyway.”

“I agree.” There goes Mr. Fluffypant’s nose.

“I was wondering where the ratty thing went. Didn’t even notice it was gone until last night.”

Louis rolls his eyes and flicks his wand at one of the bear’s eyes. Down it goes, bouncing on the floor. Both him and Davis watch it roll to a stop at Davis’s feet.

“I--okay, what the bleeding hell do you want from me?!” the boy yells and falls to his knees.

Ahead of schedule. Perfect. “I heard a rumour. A hinted whispering, mind you, that you’ve been keeping a certain Hufflepuff boy preoccupied about his blood heritage. The thing is, Davis, that I really, really don’t think Mr. Softbelly here and I approve of these actions. In fact, we’re pretty against all forms of bullying.”

Davis lifts his face from the floor, eyebrows pulled together. “You’re cutting my Sir Reginald apart because of a mudblood?!” he hisses the last word.

Louis clucks his tongue disapprovingly and flicks his wand at the bear’s little furry wrist. The paw goes flying and hits Davis in the face. “Language.”

There’s a pause and then, “Okay. We’ll leave your m--erm, boyfriend alone.”

Louis’s heart warms at the word boyfriend and he tries to hide his pleased tone of voice. “Actually, you see that’s not enough. You and your friends are going around, working up your mouths at a whole mass of students. Reggy is disappointed.”

“They’re absolute filth, Tomlinson. Why are you going out of your way to--”

Slice. There goes Reginald’s left leg. It falls with a pathetic plop to the floor. Davis’s eyes fill with tears.

“Fine,” he sighs and crumples to the floor.

About time. “Fine, what?”

“We won’t touch your precious mudbloods anymore,” Davis tells the floor.

Louis smiles and pulls a scroll out of his satchel. “That’s all I needed. Now sign here.”

Davis regards the outstretched scroll. “What’s this?”

“Like I’d actually take your word. This is a formally written out agreement that you will stop any and all forms of bullying on all students. In the fifth clause you will find that you will actually help me prevent further bullying so that we ‘create a safe learning environment for our fellow students’. Zayn wrote that part.”

Davis looks at his bear collapsed in the armchair and grabs Louis’s quill, signing his name on the dotted line. “Good, and initial,” a shuffling of the scroll until it stretches even further revealing a fine print, “here,” Louis says and points next to the print.

It’s just some drabble about the consequences of not following the agreement. Davis will just burst into unquenchable flames until he apologises and announces his love of broccoli. Louis came up with that part.

“Did it, now can I have Reginald back?” Davis whines.

Louis carefully rolls up the scroll and places it back in his satchel. “Actually, I rather enjoy our mutual friend here. Now, if you excuse me. Sir Reggy and I have a tea party to attend to,” he remarks, grabbing the bear and turning to leave.

“You’re just taking my teddy bear?!”

“The sacrifice of one man to save a nation,” Louis comments lightly and waltzes away.

Yes, a job well done. Now he believes this bear deserves some tea and biscuits. Maybe a bandage or two.

***

He finds Zayn in their dormitory, stacking several robes in a pile in the middle of the room. Ed Sheeran and Charlie Weasley are whimpering loudly and hiding underneath their beds. This is new.

“Zayn, what the bloody hell is going on?” he asks the bloke rummaging through the trunks at the foot of everyone’s respective beds.

When he doesn’t receive an answer, he walks over to his bed and places Sir Reginald and all of his parts on his linens. He turns and finally addresses the cowering fellow-Gryffindors. “Where’s Niall, then?”

Charlie speaks up. “He was practising on the pitch last I heard.”

Louis nods and turns back to the pathetic body that he regards as his best mate. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on or do I have to demand it out of someone else? I’m really finished with this whole day. I got poor marks on that potions essay and Harry left the hall before I could get to the chorus of his song I’ve been working on for months.”

This is when Zayn turns around, two robes in his hands, stolen from the trunk. “You should stop trying to get Harry.”

Really. Louis restrains from rolling his eyes, but he does allow himself a nice, sarcastic laugh. “Thanks for the advice, mate. You’ve only been telling me that since we were eleven.”

“He doesn’t like the attention; therefore, he doesn’t like you,” Zayn states simply and throws his acquired robes into the pile. He then mutters something about it being big enough and flicks his wand at it. It goes up in flames, Ed and Charlie run out screaming, and Louis is weirded out by how proud he feels.

“I hardly think you just lit up our wardrobe because Harry doesn’t like me,” Louis replies just as calmly.

Zayn is still watching the flames, the light reflects off his eyes in a hellish sort of way and if, well, when Louis goes to hell, this is what he expects to be down there. An emotionless shell of his best mate, burning his favourite robes and telling him that the love of his life doesn’t like him back.

And maybe a few gnomes biting at his ankles, because he’s always despised the little creatures that infest their gardens.

“Do you want to talk about?” he questions gently.

Zayn blinks a few times and looks around like he’s just woken up from a nightmare. He puts the flames out and slumps to the ground. Louis walks over accordingly and cuddles up next to him. Finally, he gets an explanation. “Do you think…” he groans out a pained sigh, then continues, “that my father was right?”

That has him muttering all sorts of curses that would have McGonagall slapping him on the side of his head. “That--knob of a father? The one that threw you against walls until you were black and blue?! You had to fucking crawl to my house you were so injured when he finally threw you out. No, I don’t think he’s right.”

Zayn winces, but nods. Louis runs a hand down his face and talks more gently, because obviously his mate is a god damned moron right now. Louis loves him so much. “Look, remember what my grandfather said before we left for school that summer?”

Zayn avoids his stare, but nods a second time. Whatever, obviously Louis needs to remind him. “He said that you’re the smartest, bravest, and cleverest person he has ever had the opportunity of meeting, besides grandmother, of course.”

When Zayn continues to be unresponsive, he chugs along. “Granddad has met a lot of people, Z. You know this. He’s even come face-to-face with the Minister of Magic, himself. There’s no bloody way he’d just say that to make you feel good, because he’s not that type of man. You are truly amazing. Okay? Now get up off the floor and clean up this mess before McGonagall comes in, inquiring about your sudden arsonist tendencies that Charlie and Ed will have, no doubt, informed her of by now. We’ll say that they have gone mental. Probably brought on by the insane amount of homework she’s been piling on lately.”

Finally, Zayn smiles. They both send the scorched robes away and clean up the remaining ashes.

“I’m always saying these robes are horrific. I think that was a clever fashion statement,” Louis states once they’re all done and cuddling in bed.

“Not a fashion statement. You know that nargles infest black coloured clothing.”

He didn’t, but he does now.

***

Niall has been sketchy lately and it’s bloody annoying. Mostly because whenever Niall starts acting strange, Charlie mopes around like an idiot. Louis is not amused.

“Niall, get your fat arse over here and explain yourself!” he screams up into the air where Niall is flying above the pitch.

He crash lands somewhere close to where Louis is standing and pouts into the ground. “I’m buggered,” he tells the ground.

“What are you going on about?” Louis asks him and taps the ground with his foot impatiently. He’s only really come here to grab Niall by the ear and drag him back to Charlie before Charlie begins sobbing.

He has an essay to finish by tomorrow morning.

“I’m the worst Quidditch player ever, Lou,” Niall says and looks up. He has a bloody nose and a chipped tooth.

That’s not true. “That’s not true,” Louis informs him and moves to go back into the castle. He’s stopped by Niall’s burst of laughter.

“I can’t even bloody well fly in a straight line, let alone play with balls!” he shouts into the night-chilled air.

If Zayn were here, he would have made a well-timed sex joke. Seeing as he isn’t here and Niall looks faintly insane, grinning and laughing like a maniac, he restrains himself. “Yeah, okay. You might have troubles staying in the air, but you’re a fine enough beater.”

Niall pouts. His lips are covered in blood. It’s disturbing. “Beaters aren’t important.”

Right. This is going to take longer than he had originally planned. So, he sits himself down and prays that Zayn won’t try “defending their robes from nargles” again tonight. Why is it his friends are suddenly going mental all around him?

“Niall, beaters are massively important. There are things called bludgers that literally try to knock the players off their brooms. Who thought of that? Some psychopath with homicidal tendencies, but that’s besides the point. Without the beaters, no one would be able to stay afloat. And you know how that feels, don’t you? Not being able to stay on your broom long enough to score points?”

“It sucks,” Niall replies.

Louis agrees with a grunt. “It sucks.”

They stay like that for several minutes. It’s probably past their curfew seeing as the moon is high in the sky and the faint woodland creatures sounds are magnified in the deserted pitch, but they stay. Comforted by each others company.

“How did you know you liked blokes?” Niall whispers.

Louis blinks and lays himself next to him, staring up at the night sky. The stars shine brighter here than in Doncaster. Beautiful. “Sexualities are tricky things,” is his reply.

Niall scoffs. “That wasn’t an answer.”

“I answered the question you were thinking, love. Not the one you were asking. Is it wrong to love a bloke? No, because when it comes down to it, sexuality isn’t black and white. I personally think that we should all focus on falling in love with a person first and their gender afterward. There are all sorts of ways to have sex, so it shouldn’t be a big deal, really. Sex can accommodate, love is a bit harder to get a grasp on,” he tells the night sky.

The stars twinkle back down at him. Niall stays silent.

Eventually, the lights in the castle go out and they both realise they should sneak back in before a wandering professor catches them.

“I can give you flying lessons,” Louis whispers in the corridors of the castle.

“That would be craic,” Niall whispers back.

***

It being the Spring when exams are on the horizon, students are packed in the library. Louis, however, is not in the library. Not because he’s sworn off the damned dust-packed room and the grumpy librarian that really doesn’t have a proper sense of humour, but because he is being grouped by several angry upperclassmen Ravenclaws. Well, at least this is more interesting than revisions.

“And to what do I owe this pleasure, O’Brien?” he asks the group leader. Obvious by the way everyone is looking at him like little ducklings to their mother. Is that a good simile? Probably not. He supposes he shouldn’t worry about that sort of thing when he’s face-to-face with a bloke that looks like he’s three seconds away from using an unforgivable curse.

“I missed a game because of you!” O’Brien growls. Without their seeker, the Ravenclaw team was forced to send in a substitute. They lost. Hufflepuffs will take the cup this year. This is old news.

Louis tuts and wags his finger centimeters away from O’Brien’s nose. “Now now, you missed your game because of your broken ribs, arm, and fractured skull.”

“You threw me against a stone wall,” he hisses in return and. Rude.

“Don’t go accusing me of such violent actions,” he deadpans, because yes, he fucking did that. He threw this git of a person away. Funny how O’Brien’s friends didn’t go to his aid at that moment. This is why Louis handpicks the people he trusts. So...he only corresponds with like, two people. Two and a half if he counts his new friend, Reginald.

The group clusters around closer and it’s a good thing he isn’t claustrophobic or this could have gotten awkward fast. “Tomlinson, you’re going to pay,” someone mutters.

“Speak up, babe. Daddy has bad ears,” Louis mutters back. He chuckles at his own joke.

That’s when the first punch is thrown. Followed by several kicks. For the “smartest-book loving-knowledge seeking” group of Hogwarts students, they aren’t really putting their knowledge of charms to good use right now. As exemplified by O’Brien spitting right at Louis’s bruised and battered face. He probably should have fought back or something. Used his own spells to throw them away, but he wasn’t planning on being beaten up between lunch and dinner.

“What the hell?!” a low and achingly familiar voice echoes in the corridor.

People scatter quickly after that. Well, Louis is pretty buggered by this point, so he supposes they think their “message” of “stay the fuck away from us” is probably received. As soon as they’re gone, he crowds in on himself. Placing his hands over his face and knees pressing against his pounding chest.

He won’t lie, that was horrifying.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks, his body heat warming where he’s kneeling just next to Louis.

And. Bloody hell, Harry witnessed that. Harry’s the one that stopped that, but he witnessed it. “I’m fine, really!” Louis squeaks out and pulls his hands away from his face. “Just memorising the palms of my hands,” he tackles on weakly because Harry looks close to tears.

There is blood splattered on his palms, confirming that the metallic taste in his mouth and falling from his nose is, indeed, blood. He is also having a hard time keeping his left eye open, but he struggles against all of these injuries and tries giving Harry a smile.

The muscles he strains to do that hurt like hell. So he’ll add that to the list of “what he’ll  find in hell once he lets himself die.” The devil is probably getting a kick out of this. The devil looks a lot like O’Brien.

“You’re a twat,” Harry tells him.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Louis snaps back quickly and winces at his own tone. Apparently when your whole body feels like it’s burning, you don’t take kindly to people calling you a twat. Who would have thought?

Harry groans and closes his eyes. Don’t do that, Louis whines in his head, but can’t bring himself to voice it out loud when he coughs into the stone floor. He faintly wonders if Filch cleans up a lot of blood puddles off the floor. He probably doesn’t even question it anymore. Just cleans it up and complains to his cat about “stupid teenagers.”

“Louis, why were they kicking the shit out of you?” Harry asks. And. Swearing Harry is hot. That should be a thing that Harry does more often.

“We were having a nice chat about politics over tea and some harsh words were exchanged,” Louis explains and tries to sit up. That’s not happening anytime soon. He’ll wait a decade and try again.

Instead of calling him out on his obvious lie, Harry asks, “And where is Zayn?” and looks around like the lad will pop out from behind the wall.

“Studying. Like you should be doing, actually. What are you doing here?”

Harry gives him a “you’re kidding me right now, right?” kind of look and, thanks Harry. Your sarcastic looks are doing wonders for Louis’s self-esteem. “Let’s get you to the hospital wing,” Harry decides and tries to lift Louis off the ground.

Woah. Hold up young one. Louis just decided he would wait out his pain instead of trying to move. This goes against his plans and he will not have it. “No,” he moans out and wiggles to get out of Harry’s arms.

Wiggling, for anyone inquiring, hurts like hell. Louis will let the devil know.

“Come on! You look awful! They were pounding you into the ground and--” he breaks off in a whimper. “Madam Pomfrey will fix you right up.”

“Noooo,” Louis whines more and swats Harry’s arms away. “Leave me alone!”

God damn. Harry starts to cry, but still tries to gather Louis up in his arms. “You’re bleeding! You need to have someone look at it!” he chokes out between sobs.

Finally, Louis sucks it up and let’s Harry lift him off the ground. He winces and hisses out different curses, which, okay, don’t help the whole “Harry is crying” situation.

“I’m fine,” he says.

That seems to anger Harry which is a whole lot better than him crying. “You’re not fine,” Harry hisses and speed walks away from the crime scene. “You’ve got blood pouring from your ears you fucking twat.”

Eh. “I’m fine,” he repeats.

Harry ignores him. He’s good at that sort of thing.

When they make it to the hospital wing, Harry is panting and sweating. He looks on the verge of throwing Louis down on the stairs (“I’m fine, Harry. I don’t know why we’re bugging Pomfrey over this. A little beating never killed anyone. Stop growling.”). Madam Pomfrey is quick to pull Louis from his grasps and angrily starts taking care of his wounds.

“Look at what you’ve done to yourself, boy,” she hisses at him and. Hey, what is it? Hurt Louis’s Feelings day? That is certainly not a government approved holiday.

He doesn’t respond, just watches Harry pull at his own hair and kick things. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but it is and Louis is only slightly embarrassed when Pomfrey tuts at him to pay attention to her. “What have you done this time?”

“Well, you see, love,” he starts and Harry stops his kicking to glare at him. “Zayn, Niall, Charlie, and I decided to try mattress surfing down the stairs. You’ve heard of mattress surfing, I assume? If not, we’ll invite you next time. It’s certain an adrenaline rush.”

Pomfrey rolls her eyes and Harry interrupts him before he can go into detail of his tumbling down the stairs. “A group of Ravenclaw six years kicked him into the ground. They left before I could see who they were.”

Pomfrey looks shocked and Louis is scandalised. “Of course not, Poppy. You know how well I get along with my fellow students. No, this was me just being clumsy. Harry is imagining things. You should be sure he’s okay.”

“Get Dumbledore,” Pomfrey tells Harry and Harry runs off to do just that.

Well. Fuck. He waits for his doom while Pomfrey dabs at his face with a wet towel and her wand. He doesn’t wait long. Dumbledore in all of his grandness walks in swiftly, Harry and McGonagall following.

“Detention! Detention! Detention!” McGonagall starts shouting automatically when she sees Louis. She blushes and covers her mouth just as quickly. “Sorry, habit,” she tells the headmaster.

He giggles. “Nearly made a habit of that myself with Tomlinson,” Dumbledore whispers conspiringly to Harry. He looks less murderous after that. Good. “Now who has done this to you?” he asks Louis.

“Just got in a debate over current affairs. Did you know that werewolves and vampires aren’t allowed to participate in politics? Controversial,” Louis tells everyone the room and Pomfrey pushes the wet towel on his face a bit harsher. Rude.

Dumbledore looks at him, eyes searching. His whole body shivers with that look. “I, myself, am unhappy with the affairs of magical creatures,” he states after a good five minutes of “soul searching.” He turns to Pomfrey. “Let’s heal him and see what group of people decided that current affairs are as controversial as Tomlinson claims.”

He leaves soon after. McGonagall waltzes over and touches his arm delicately before leaving with a turn of her heel. Harry looks pissed, but he doesn’t speak up until Pomfrey leaves to fetch him clean pyjamas and sheets.

“You are the most idiotic person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.”

Here’s the thing. Louis is tired. He’s just been kicked nearly semi-conscious by a dozen people and had to lie to his headmaster about it. Plus the drugs Pomfrey has given him are making him feel drowsy and nauseous all at the same time. Fuck this.

“The feeling's mutual,” he grunts out and matches Harry’s glare.

“You can’t just let them go! They’re not above violence, obviously,” he states and waves his hand in Louis’s direction. Louis rolls his eyes. “So what makes you think they won’t go after someone else?!”

Calm down, lad. “I’ve got this under control,” he whispers, because Madam Pomfrey comes back and hands him clothes to change into.

She pulls the curtains around his bed, but Louis can still hear Harry’s heavy breathing and low curses. Maybe swearing Harry isn’t as hot as he thought. “What the bloody well do you mean by that?”

Easy. Louis has been creating an anti-bullying army here at Hogwarts for about a year now. He doesn’t want Dumbledore sending the lads packing, he needs them. In fact, he already has enough blackmail information to get them to obey him like the bastards they are.

You see, Louis has been counting on them lashing out at him for several months now. Well, ever since he caught them taunting Darlene. He may have been pushing them on during their confrontation today. Just a little. He can’t blackmail them if all they do is threaten him. He needs something substantial. The inquiry of the headmaster is gold.

Although, he is very weary of informing Harry of all this. He isn’t playing by the rules. Unless he gets to write his own rules, but he’s guessing that isn’t the way things work. “They aren’t going to hurt anyone else,” he sighs and opens the curtains. “They don’t want to. Run along now, love. I think Pomfrey put a sleeping potion in my pumpkin juice.”

Harry moves to leave, but stops and bites his lip. “You’re alright though, right? They won’t come back?”

It hasn’t occurred to Louis that Harry might have been mildly traumatised by the scene of ten Ravenclaws hurting him mercilessly. He supposes he has been a little heartless in that respect, so he grabs his wand from the pockets of his discarded robes and flicks it at his tableside lamp. It flickers five times and he nods in approval before turning and explaining.

“The hospital wing windows face the Hufflepuff dormitories,” he states and points at where he knows the Hufflepuff boy’s rooms to be. Just below the Astronomy tower and next to the kitchens. “If I’m in trouble, I’ll flicker the lamp five times and you can run to get whichever professor your want, okay?”

Harry moves to the window and narrows his eyes at the view. He nods and turns, calling out a soft, “Sleep well,” to Louis before leaving.

Louis falls asleep soon after, the sleeping potion taking him under. He dreams of giant bludgers and Harry crying over his broken body. It’s not the most disturbing dream he’s had, but it’s a close call.

***

When he is released the next morning, all bandaged and sorted, he skips to the Great Hall and nods at a pale Zayn and tired-looking Niall.

“You didn’t come to bed last night,” they both say to him. Zayn is eyeing his bandages.

“I had some other priorities to sort to,” is Louis’s explanation. He sits and piles his plate with anything but eggs.

“You know everyone knows that you were beaten up,” Niall informs him and Zayn narrows his eyes accordingly.

“Rumours.”

“Your arm is literally bandaged to your chest.”

“I’m clumsy.”

Zayn looks like he’s going to argue further but the post comes and a familiar looking owl drops on his breakfast. Louis grabs the small piece of parchment from him and Zayn moans something about his bacon.

It’s from his granddad, he recognises the scrawl, but the note is only four words long.

_We need to talk._

Nothing else. His stomach bundles up from nerves. Nerves he didn’t feel yesterday when he was made into a punching bag. Nor when he performed his written song for Harry in front of the whole school. Nope, he doesn’t do nerves. Normally.

Niall interrupts his thoughts, stealing a Daily Prophet from a first year and throwing it into his face. “Look at this!”

The main article is titled, “Austin Caught” and has a picture of a crazed man standing cuffed next to his tired-looking grandfather. The implications buzz around his skull, drowning out the rest of the Hall.

So. His father really is a Deatheater. His grandfather is coming back from...he quickly scans the article...New Zealand. And he wants to talk to Louis. He should feel ecstatic, but he ends up staring at Zayn’s destroyed breakfast. He bites back the bile that builds up this throat and stuffs the parchment in his bag, putting on a pleasant face for his mates.

“Did we have Astronomy homework?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five points to anyone who can point out the biblical reference, film reference, and book reference.
> 
> Special thank you to all those subscribed, kudosed, and commented. You are the ones that keep me writing this weird mess of a story.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [jacktheminiatureslayer](http://jacktheminiatureslayer.tumblr.com/) and I'm on there often.


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